From the founding of Memphis, Poplar Avenue has been a central corridor—linking urban neighborhoods, suburbs and rural parts of Shelby County and helping shape the city’s growth. After a recent Republican-led redistricting effort, that same thoroughfare now slices Memphis into pieces, putting much of the majority-Black city into three separate congressional districts likely to elect Republicans.
The map change came quickly after a Supreme Court ruling narrowed a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Tennessee is among the first Southern states to redraw its congressional lines in the wake of that decision, officials say to better reflect political geography and to create more Republican-held seats. Critics say the timing and shape of the new districts reflect a long history of discriminatory practices in the South and deliberately dilute Black voting power.
State and local Republicans interviewed by NPR defended the new lines, arguing the previous map concentrated Black voters into a single safe Democratic seat and that mixing urban, suburban and rural areas produces districts that better mirror the state’s overall makeup. “We have people who are upset and angry because the lines as they are drawn do exactly what we have been fighting to do in this country for years and years and years,” Maury County GOP Chair Jason Gilliam said. He added that some opponents seem to be asking for segregation by race rather than equal representation.
Democrats and voting-rights advocates respond that the changes cannot be separated from race. “I do not buy this argument that you can look at this politically and not in terms of race,” Williamson County Democratic Party Chair Ragan Grossman said. “We are in essence saying, ‘Oh, you can’t make a district based on race if you’re Black, but guess what? You can make a district all day long based on race if you’re white!'”
Beyond the partisan arguments, residents across the newly drawn 9th Congressional District describe practical and emotional challenges. The 5th and 9th districts now begin in Memphis, snake through rural counties, and converge in suburban Williamson County south of Nashville—more than 200 miles from where they start. That geography raises questions about whether a single member of Congress can effectively represent such disparate communities.
At Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church’s Southwind campus, pastor J. Lawrence Turner described his city as a “political pawn for a national agenda” that does not match Memphis’s needs. His two church campuses now fall in different districts—one in the new 9th, the other in the 5th—illustrating how the lines divide institutions and neighborhoods. Turner, who leads the Black Clergy Collaborative of Memphis, warned that splitting Shelby County’s majority-Black electorate across multiple districts could mute their influence and depress turnout. “I think it can push this district to a place where some might feel, ‘Well, what’s the use of voting?'” he said. He stressed that voting remains a hard-won, sacred right.
Republican state Sen. Brent Taylor, who supports the map and is running in the reconfigured 9th, said mixing communities will force representatives to be more attentive to a wider range of voters. He described his record on the Memphis City Council and the Shelby County Commission as preparation for bridging divides between urban and suburban priorities. “I think it’s better for the congressmen in these districts to actually represent the interests and values of Tennesseans,” Taylor said.
Not everyone in Memphis shares that optimism. In a community center where players gathered for Mahjong, Pat Ford—a Democrat and the group’s founder—expressed annoyance when Taylor’s interview interrupted the gathering. Many Democrats call the redrawing “highway robbery” and say it is “totally racist from the core.”
Three hours north in Williamson County, GOP chair Steve Hickey acknowledged the challenge of representing such a sprawling district but argued it should make lawmakers more responsive. “They’re going to have to be responsive to everybody in that district,” he said. Hickey and other Republicans point to past maps drawn by Democrats as evidence that gerrymanders have been used by both parties to protect political advantage.
Maury County GOP Chair Jason Gilliam said splitting his county between districts is a net gain because residents will have more than one representative advocating for local needs. He emphasized the practical requirements the new map imposes: more travel for candidates and the need for stronger field operations to maintain constituent contact.
Democrats in Williamson pushed back, warning that the district’s wealth and donor base in southern suburbs could tilt priorities away from Memphis. “Those donors are going to come from the wealthy part of this county,” Pete Vorholt said. Shanera Williamson pointed to the irony that the economically depressed area around the Lorraine Motel—where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated—was chosen as a place whose voters’ influence would be reduced soon after the Supreme Court’s change.
Some activists see a silver lining. John Haynes, a pastor and county commission candidate, said anger over the map may spur higher voter registration and turnout among Black voters and Democrats in the midterms. “As I’ve been out campaigning… people are hurting, people are scared. But out of that hurt, out of that fear, it ought to be something that makes you rise up,” he said.
Multiple lawsuits have already been filed challenging the new lines, and several court battles are pending. The candidate qualifying deadline for the reconfigured districts was approaching, even as legal challenges moved forward.
Whatever the outcome in court, the redrawing has forced communities to confront what representation means when a single congressional district spans very different places and populations. For many in Memphis, it has turned a familiar avenue—Poplar—into a visible marker of division, raising hard questions about whose voices will be heard in Washington and how local needs will be balanced against political strategy.