The Augusta Chronicle in Georgia states that the Voting Rights Act has had unintended consequences in that the landmak law seems to hurt those it was supposed to help.   

“The federal Voting Rights Act that was designed in the civil rights era to safeguard black electoral efficacy actually has the opposite effect now that it’s been fully exploited by both parties in the South.”

…. “Since blacks so reliably vote Democratic, where they were put on the district maps became the most visible tool in the partisan battle. When Democrats run the redistricting, they tend to distribute black voters across as many districts as the law allows so they’ll help keep Democratic lawmakers in the statehouse majority.  Democrats ran every Southern state when Congress passed the law in 1965, so it served kept them from spreading the blacks so thin that they would never elect black representatives. Those black legislators, in subsequent redistricting sessions, wanted to maximize the blacks in their districts to ensure re-election. Ironically, that aligned their interests with conservative Republicans who wanted as few blacks in their districts to improve their own re-election chance.”

The Chronicle seems confused in believing the Voting Rights Act was designed to perpetuate the power of the Democratic Party and not to empower Black Americans.