The Southern Christian Coalition is speaking out on an upcoming special legislative session designed to eliminate the influence of Memphis in the U.S. Congress.
From a press release issued by SCC:
The Southern Christian Coalition responds with deep concern to Bill Lee’s decision to call a special legislative session on congressional redistricting beginning tomorrow May 5, 2026. While presented as procedural, this moment must be understood within a longer and more sobering history. In the American South, the drawing of political boundaries has too often been used as a tool to preserve power by fragmenting communities, particularly Black communities, whose collective voice has long been seen as a threat to the status quo.
“As Christians, we cannot pretend this is neutral,” said The Rev. Austin Becton of the Southern Christian Coalition. “When you redraw lines to weaken the political voice of a historically Black community, you are not just following a process. You are repeating a pattern. The South knows this pattern well. We have seen systems used to preserve power while claiming fairness. The question is not simply whether this is legal. It is whether we have the courage to name it for what it is.”
The Christian tradition speaks directly to moments such as this. Scripture does not separate justice from the ordering of communal life. To bear the image of God is not only a personal dignity. It is a shared reality that calls us into a common life marked by equity, truth, and neighbor-love. When communities are divided for the sake of political advantage, that shared life is strained, and the bonds of justice are weakened.
For this reason, we must speak plainly. Efforts that result in the dilution of Black political power cannot be understood apart from the racial history of our state and region. Whether by intent or by effect, such actions participate in a legacy that the Church is called to name and resist.
Yet this is not only a word to the state. It is a word to the Church.
The Church must not stand at a distance as a commentator on racial injustice. We are called to be a people formed by vision of community that refuses to benefit from the silencing of others. This moment calls for more than statements. It calls for presence, for solidarity, for loud shouts and cries, and for the continued patient work of forming communities that reflect the justice we proclaim.