U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, the Black Republican representing Texas’s 38th Congressional District, is going viral for remarks he recently made dismissing the suggestion that redistricting efforts to carve out the voting power of majority-Black districts are a sign of “Jim Crow 2.0” in the South.
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Hunt ridiculed Democrats on the panel who suggested that redrawing maps to dilute Black voters’ ability to influence the outcome of elections marked a new era of Jim Crow.
“I’m seeing a lot of talk from my colleagues on the left…as we shift toward this reinvigorated talk about Jim Crow and the path to this country. And as someone who is a direct descendant of a slave, as someone whose great, great-grandfather was born on a plantation, I can assure you, slavery is over,” said Hunt, who will no longer serve in Congress at the end of his term in January 2027 after an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate.
The 44-year-old Texas lawmaker continued, “Jim Crow is dead. When I go anywhere, I don’t see any ‘White Only’ signs. I don’t, I promise you. I am a Black man that is representing a white-majority district in Texas. The great, great grandson of a man born on the plantation stands before you today as a proud conservative Republican from Texas, as a believer and follower in Christ, and as a believer in what this country can be.”
“Leave it to Hunt to continue to play Trump’s token while his party attacks Black voters,” said Markus Batchelor, national political director at People For the American Way.
He told theGrio, “He has had every opportunity to speak out as Republican legislatures gutted Voting Rights Act protections, carved up Black districts, closed polling places, purged voter rolls, and made voting harder in communities of color. Instead, he chose party loyalty and political convenience over honesty.”
Hunt recently made headlines for dismissing a reporter’s question about him and the other three Black Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, all leaving Congress, leaving a glaring void for a party that is majority white and that has long faced criticisms for its lack of diversity.
“I don’t care how many Black people are here,” said the congressman, who, along with Reps. Byron Donalds of Florida, John James of Michigan, and Burgess Owens of Utah represented what was seen by some as a promising turn for a Republican Party that has, over the years, embraced white nationalist ideology and policies under the leadership of President Donald Trump.
“It is no coincidence that every Black Republican in Congress — including him — is retiring or stepping down after this election at the exact moment the modern GOP has embraced some of the most brazen assaults on Black representation since Reconstruction,” Batchelor told theGrio. “The message from today’s Republican Party is clear: Black faces are welcome as spokespeople, but Black political power itself is treated like a threat.”
The advocacy leader and organizer called out Hunt for condemning racism of the past but “refusing to confront how race is being weaponized right now — through attacks on ‘DEI,’ demonization of majority-Black cities, fearmongering about immigrants, and constant dog whistles designed to divide Americans along racial lines.”
“Donald Trump built his political movement on that strategy. From birtherism to attacks on ‘inner cities’ to smearing Black prosecutors and elected officials as inherently corrupt or illegitimate, race has been central to the project from the beginning. And politicians like Hunt have too often served as convenient validators whenever criticism comes,” said Batchelor.
“Jim Crow was never just about separate water fountains. It was about suppressing Black voices, weakening Black voting strength, and maintaining political control through racial division and exclusion.”
He added, “So no — Americans are not imagining what they’re seeing. And Black Americans especially don’t need lectures about racism from politicians who go silent every time their own party engages in it.”
