Alabama: 11th Circuit kills suit against Chilton County consent decree
The Birmingham News reports: A federal appeals court on Monday delivered a victory to activists who integrated the Chilton County Commission, ruling on the last of more than 150 lawsuits that reshaped the way Alabamians elect local officials statewide.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta overturned a lower court's decision, and left in place an election system that led to black representation on the commission. The suit was the last of the so-called "Dillard suits," which challenged the at-large voting system that civil rights activists said kept county commissions, city commissions and school boards all over the state almost exclusively white.
James Blacksher, an attorney who represented civil rights activists in the Chilton County suit and many of the Dillard suits, said the suit was the only one remaining unresolved after 20 years of litigation. ...
The Dillard lawsuits are credited by civil rights activists, legal scholars and historians with giving blacks their first real representation in local government in Alabama since the end of slavery. Before the suits were filed, there were only a handful of blacks in local elected office. Today, more than 17 percent of local offices are held by blacks, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. That makes Alabama one of just four states in the nation with a percentage of black elected officials in double figures. -- Chilton integration system upheld- al.com
Disclosure: I am one of the counsel for the black plaintiffs in the Dillard cases.
The opinion can be downloaded from the 11th Circuit website.