BOSTON — Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley accused Republicans of wanting Black Americans to "pick cotton" Saturday night, in a bizarre statement posted to X as the political fallout from this week's Supreme Court ruling on Louisiana's majority-Black congressional district continued to spread.
"Some Republicans would rather Black Americans pick cotton than pick their Congressperson," the Boston Democrat wrote on X at 7 p.m. on Saturday. "They want politicians to decide who their voters are, instead of the voters determining who their Representatives are. We must use every tool available to defend the sacred right to vote."
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— Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@RepPressley) May 16, 2026Some Republicans would rather Black Americans pick cotton than pick their Congressperson.
They want politicians to decide who their voters are, instead of the voters determining who their Representatives are.
We must use every tool available to defend the sacred right to vote.
The bizarre statement landed in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's recent 6-3 ruling that states cannot draw voting districts based on race, which voided Louisiana's redrawn congressional map — a map designed to create a second majority-Black district that the Court's conservative majority found relied too heavily on race.
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Pressley, who represents Massachusetts's 7th congressional district covering much of Boston, has been one of the loudest voices in the Democratic Caucus on voting rights and gerrymandering. The "pick cotton" line is not new for her — she used a near-identical version of it earlier this year in remarks about the Trump administration.
Not mentioned in Pressley's Saturday post: her own Massachusetts 7th congressional district, drawn by Democratic supermajorities on Beacon Hill, has itself drawn years of criticism for sweeping parts of Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Randolph and Milton together along narrow corridors that Republicans have called textbook gerrymandering.
This is a developing story.
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