MEMPHIS, Tenn. - For more than two decades, Steve Fowler and Sam Wilson have jammed together in a band on Memphis's iconic Beale Street. Over the last ten years, the pair have also shared a peaceful, tree-lined street as neighbors.

Starting Thursday, however, the friends across the street will vote in different congressional districts.

Tennessee's GOP-dominated legislature has redrawn the map for the Memphis area, which previously held its own reliably Democratic seat in the U.S. House. The majority-Black city now fragments into three districts tilted toward Republicans, with its population dispersed into predominantly white, rural conservative zones radiating out from neighborhoods like Fowler and Wilson's in East Memphis.

A boundary slices straight down their street, assigning Fowler to the 8th Congressional District that stretches hundreds of miles eastward through over a dozen counties to central Tennessee. Wilson falls into the 9th District, which spans much of the state's southern edge before looping northward to include wealthy, mostly white Nashville suburbs.

"It's outrageous," Fowler, who is white, remarked. "This hurts not only Black residents in Memphis but also low-income whites in these expanded districts, who won't get adequate services. How can any representative effectively cover all those counties?"

The changes stem from a U.S. Supreme Court decision by its conservative majority, potentially ending dedicated congressional representation for majority-Black areas in the South like Memphis.

For six decades, a key section of the Voting Rights Act mandated that redistricting avoid diluting minority votes, often creating districts where communities of color could elect preferred candidates without being outnumbered by surrounding white majorities.

This provision impacted Southern states most, where racial lines still sharply divide partisan loyalties between Black and white voters.

On April 29, the court curtailed that safeguard, deeming prior judicial oversight an unconstitutional focus on race. Southern Republicans quickly seized the opportunity to revise maps ahead of November's elections, targeting Democratic seats anchored by minority populations.

Tennessee moved first among GOP-led states to approve a revised map. Similar efforts are underway in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, fueling a national wave of partisan mapmaking.

GOP leaders have argued the Voting Rights Act blocked them from mirroring Democratic tactics in blue states - breaking up conservative white rural voters for advantage. Tennessee Republicans applied that approach to Nashville Democrats in their 2021 map, unhindered since the city is majority white.

"Tennessee leans conservative, and our congressional lineup should match," said state Sen. John Stevens, a Republican who guided the legislation creating nine solidly GOP districts.

Wilson, the Black Memphis performer, took the neighborhood split more in stride, viewing it amid broader challenges like federal crime interventions under former President Donald Trump and suburban criticisms of city safety.

"This is a gritty town - we hustle to support our families," Wilson said. "Memphis thrives on music and civil rights heritage, deeply connected. Tough times push us to our talents; here, music is survival."

The Memphis district existed long before the 1965 Voting Rights Act. For a century, Tennessee recognized the Mississippi River hub deserved its standalone U.S. House seat. Post-1965, partisan splits risked lawsuits and invalidation; experts now see little such threat.

Democrats and advocacy groups have filed suits to halt the map. The stakes feel acute in a city hosting the National Civil Rights Museum at the site of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 assassination. Lawmakers faced chants of "Hands off Memphis!" and Jim Crow accusations from protesters.

"Memphis anchors America's racial justice narrative, where Black citizens fought, marched, and sacrificed for voting rights," said Eric Holder, former U.S. attorney general and head of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

Recently, Memphis grapples with contrasting fortunes: billions in private and federal investments boost the region, yet businesses lament slow economic recovery.

Locals voiced worries over safety and services to the Associated Press but rejected crime stereotypes. Contrasts abound in the river city, from crumbling roads and vacant shops to grand homes, green campuses, and sports venues blocks apart.

Memphis long tensions with the Trump-voting state, which backed him 2-1 in 2024.

Nashville's conservative lawmakers repeatedly battle city hall, decrying mismanagement. They blocked post-Tyre Nichols police reforms after the 2023 killing of the unarmed Black man by officers, took over the airport board statewide, and empowered the GOP attorney general to oust Memphis's elected DA.

"The legislature aims to control us," said U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, the white Democrat holding the seat until post-midterm changes. "It's partly because we're majority Black."

Rhodes College professor Thomas Goodman, expert in politics and law, warns the maps heighten competition for lawmakers' focus and funds. Memphis voters now join districts with dissimilar Republican areas in economy, terrain, and makeup, diluting city priorities.

"It robs Black Tennesseans of true voice," Goodman said. "Fragmenting Memphis scatters its unified advocate in Washington who grasps local needs and fights for them."

Chris Wiley's Midtown home once sat in a serene pocket of duplexes, neat yards, and playing fields. Now it meets at the nexus of three districts - no shock, he said, in a Tennessee prioritizing money over people.

"Majority-Black Memphis? Messing with us questions voting here," said the 29-year-old Black stadium worker. "Our numbers never tip the scales anyway."

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Reporting contributions from Nicholas Riccardi in Denver and videojournalist Sophie Bates.