On May 7, Tennessee state Sen. Charlane Oliver stood on the Senate floor and read from a document while the chamber moved on a map that would split majority-Black Memphis among three districts. Randy McNally, the Republican lieutenant governor who presides over the chamber, called her protest performative, childish, and beneath the dignity of the institution. In September she sued, with four of her constituents as co-plaintiffs. “My constituents feel like their vote did not count that day,” she said.
Kimberly Peeler-Allen, who co-founded Higher Heights for America, puts the pattern in one line. “What we see time and time again is that when Black women do their jobs, they’re vilified,” she said.
The names stack up. Angie Nixon, the Florida state representative now running for the U.S. Senate, faced up to two years in jail on trespassing charges that resolved in September with a $250 fine and 15 hours of community service. New York Attorney General Letitia James, in office since 2019, was indicted in October 2025 and calls the prosecution politically motivated. Rep. LaMonica McIver, in office since 2024, faces three counts she says are purely political. Federal agents searched Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home, and she said she will not be silenced.
Oliver names what she thinks is underneath it: “the misogyny, the gender dynamics that are at play right now.”
Nixon’s answer is for other Black officials to get louder.
