ELIZABETHTOWN, N.C. (June 3, 2026) — Bladen County residents turned out in droves this week to defeat a proposal to shrink the Board of Commissioners from nine members to five, a move that would have watered down Black political representation in the community.
It was standing room only at the Monday night meeting after community members and advocates showed up to express their concerns about the proposal, which was initially presented May 18 without notice by Bladen County Commission Chair Cameron McGill. He highlighted the immense community response and the numerous emails he received opposing the proposal as reasons not to move forward with it.
“I am going to ask you tonight, basically, to forget,” said McGill at the meeting. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
The proposed change would have altered the county commission’s current structure, intentionally created by a 1988 voluntary settlement to ensure fair representation.
“The current nine-member structure is in place because everyone agreed, back in 1988, that it would be fair for all voters,” said Hilary Harris Klein, Senior Counsel for Voting Rights at Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ). “And when I say everyone agreed: the Board of Commissioners agreed, the General Assembly agreed, and the voters agreed on that structure. And that is as true today as it was back in 1988.”
@scsjofficial A major win in Bladen County, NC! Community members filled every seat and stood along the walls in a packed County Commissioners Meeting Room in response to a proposal to shrink the board from nine members to five. The board ultimately decided to drop the proposal. There’s strength in numbers and this is what can happen when communities get together and make their voices heard. #thisiswhatdemocracylookslike #democracy #localelections #northcarolina
The proposal to shrink the board, on its face, appeared to be a response to the recent Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which gutted parts of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The turnout in Bladen County, however, makes it clear that communities are watching and are prepared to fight for their representation.
“We are going to go to from Bladen to Buncombe to Burke whenever we get a whiff of possible voter suppression,” said Deborah Dicks Maxwell, President of the NAACP North Carolina State Conference.
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Southern Coalition for Social Justice came together in 2007 to give Black, Brown, and low-income people better resources in the fight for justice across the South. We are lawyers, social scientists, organizers, and media professionals working to dismantle racism and oppression in the criminal legal system, in our environment, and at the ballot box. Learn more at southerncoalition.org and follow our work on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn.