The North Carolina NAACP blasted the U.S. Supreme Court today for its interpretation of the federal Voting Rights Act, saying the decision was a “direct blow” to the state’s efforts to heal the “racist wounds of the past.”

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision issued Monday, found that the Voting Rights Act did not apply to legislative districts that are less than 50 percent minority. As a result, state lawmakers will have to re-fashion districts in the Wilmington area so that Pender County is not split among two districts.

Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, said the decision ignores the troubled history in that part of the state, reports Dan Kane.

In 1898, white supremacist mobs came to Wilmington, which was governed by a “Fusionist” coalition of black and white council members. The mobs drove out the elected leaders, burned down a black-owned newspaper and killed at least 14 blacks.

“Somebody’s really got to examine this from the perspective that people don’t really know the history,” Barber said. “They don’t know that Pender County was separated (from New Hanover County) to make it an all-white county.”

More after the jump.

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The N.C. Supreme Court ordered House District 18 be redrawn.

In Pender County vs. Bartlett, the majority ruled that the legislature was wrong to break up that county in order to give minorities in the area a larger voice in choosing state lawmakers.

The state can do so, however, in counties that were designated under the Voting Rights Act.

Under that 1965 law, 40 of North Carolina's 100 counties were designated as having discriminated against minority voters, based on their use of literacy tests and their rates of registered voters at the time the act was passed.

Pender County, in blue, is not covered by the law, but two neighboring counties are.

Is 40 percent enough to give minority voters a voice? 

That was the question before the state Supreme Court in Pender County vs. Bartlett.

In drawing House District 18, the state legislature decided that a district with a significant population of black voters could still fall under the Voting Rights Act.

That 1965 law, aimed at correcting past discrimination, has long allowed for states to draw unusually shaped legislative districts in order to create a majority of black voters.

In an amicus brief, the UNC Center for Civil Rights argued that racism has ebbed enough that minority voters don't need to be an absolute majority to have a voice.

But the state Supreme Court took a more restrictive view, arguing that gerrymandering is only acceptable to create an actual majority.

Anita Earls, director of advocacy for the Center for Civil Rights, said the decision could affect some rural counties with significant minority populations after the 2010 redistricting.