South Carolina: The Corridor of Shame
Republicans make few changes to the state's original congressional district map.
South Carolina’s Redistricting TL;DR
Republicans were firmly in control of the 2020 redistricting process in South Carolina as they held majorities in both state houses alongside a Republican governor.
Since 1-in-4 South Carolina voters are Black voters, the state is required to create at least one minority-majority district (SC-6) to comply with the Voting Rights Act.
UPDATE: The South Carolina chapter of the NAACP has filed a lawsuit against the new map for racial gerrymandering. They allege that the legislature packed SC-6 in a way that unfairly dilutes the voting power of Black voters in neighboring districts.
Who’s In Control?
South Carolina’s redistricting process is completely controlled by the state legislature and requires gubernatorial approval before being adopted. Republicans are firmly in the drivers seat here as they hold a trifecta: majorities in both houses alongside a Republican governor.
New District Breakdown
South Carolina’s new congressional districts largely mirror the previous map, signalling Republican confidence in their near-dominance in state politics over the past decade. Since roughly 25% of South Carolina voters are Black, the state has the duty of providing a minority-majority district to allow Black voters the ability to select a representative of their choice. This has become an increasingly tricky task as the state’s majority nonwhite counties have seen their populations decline over the past decade. This forced mapmakers to expand SC-6 to capture some of Charleston’s suburbs to ensure that all districts have equal population.
“The Corridor of Shame”
James Clyburn’s majority-Black district has been in the national spotlight for decades due to the state’s consistent neglect of its persistently impoverished counties. The “Corridor of Shame” is a term used to describe the predominately Black counties along Interstate 95 where the state has neglected public school districts, leading to low student achievement and little economic development.
The district serves as an ugly reminder that congressional representation does not automatically lead to improved social outcomes for minority groups. The “Corridor of Shame” was borne out of a racist reaction to forced desegregation. Back in the 1970s when the federal government enforced the desegregation of schools across the South, White parents fled South Carolina’s public school system in favor of private schools. Not only did this re-segregate the school system as Black families couldn’t afford private school tuition, it also worked to defund these now predominately-Black school districts as wealthier White residents divested from their local public school systems.
“Many White residents in majority-Black school districts abandoned South Carolina’s desegregated schools, launching a prolific private school movement in the state, but simultaneously worked to control majority-Black school districts, often funneling public resources into private, segregation academies.”
—Luci Vaden in “Before the Corridor of Shame: The African American Fight for
Equal Education After Jim Crow”
Despite the fact that Clyburn currently serves as one of the highest-ranking Democrats in the US House, his rank in the national party alone is not enough to counteract the systemic discrimination happening in South Carolina.
Back in 1993, 36 of the state’s poorest school districts convened to sue the state for failing to provide “a minimally adequate education” to their students. The case became one of the longest trials in state history, languishing in court for over twenty years and was eventually decided in 2014 in favor of the school districts. In the ruling, the state court finally ordered the South Carolina General Assembly to fix the funding process for these schools. That decision was then overturned by the State Supreme Court in 2017, absolving the South Carolina state government from addressing the issue.
UPDATE: The new congressional district map has been challenged in court by the state chapter of the NAACP for racial gerrymandering. The filing claims that the new districts “work adeptly to deny the ability of Black voters to elect or even influence elections in any of the other six congressional districts.” The case is currently being heard by SCOTUS.