[DeSoto County]’s Black population has grown from roughly 11% in 2000 to 36% today. In response, the state legislature created two new judgeships as part of its redistricting plan, to be filled by this upcoming November election. The shift is meant to give Black voters greater representation on the bench, but that gain is now under legal attack: White voters have sued in federal court to cancel the upcoming election.

The challenge in DeSoto County mirrors a broader pattern across the South, where states have moved to eliminate Black voting districts following the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and cleared the way for Republican lawmakers across the region to dismantle heavily Black districts. Black voters and civil rights groups — including the ACLU of Mississippi and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, representing the DeSoto County NAACP and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. — are fighting to preserve the election.

Last week, they won part of the battle when a judge ruled that the November judicial election will take place, against the wishes of four white residents. But with only about 10 weeks before the election, it’s not clear whether the war is over.

The litigation is ongoing, and the case will proceed to a trial; however, the schedule has not been set yet. The white voters could appeal the judge’s decision to a higher court, and what the Black voters in the county have been fighting for could be delayed, once again, or removed with the stroke of a pen.

The ruling is a rare victory for Black voters in the South, coming just months after the U.S. Supreme Court’s April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais. Although judicial elections are nonpartisan, this case is a litmus test for what happens when the Black population increases and pushes for more representation, candidates, elected officials, and attorneys told Capital B.