Legendary South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn, the state’s only Democratic lawmaker, is speaking out on the state of politics under the Trump administration, comparing Project 2025 to the Jim Crow era.
“Project 2025 is Jim Crow 2.0. Now the interesting thing about this is that it will help people understand that even the violence that you see today, is reflective of what was going on after the Reconstruction or the Emancipation Proclamation, which was 1863,” Clyburn told Jaime Harrison, the former Democratic National Committee chair, on the At Our Table podcast.
“And the reaction to all of that is those people who did not want to see the formerly enslaved assimilated into our society fought it,” Clyburn said. “And they fought to redeem the pre-Civil War antebellum period.
Project 2025, a 1,000-page blueprint for 2025, first made headlines in 2023. It is chock full with extreme conservative ideologies such as policies against immigration, anti-DEI and LGBTQIA+ efforts, and the fight against women’s reproductive rights.
So far, several of those ideas have come to fruition with plans of redistricting state districts, women not having the freedom to choose in some states and DEI being a thing of the past following President Donald Trump’s executive order.
Most Project 2025 moves have resulted in both peaceful and violent protests, correlating to Clyburn’s Jim Crow reference. Black people and some allies simply fighting for equality were the victims of violence at the hands of police and white supremacy groups like the Ku Klux Klan. One of the most famous acts of violence was Bloody Sunday, where hundreds of people marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 seeking the right to vote.
The group, including Civil Rights leaders like the late Dr. Martin Luther King and Sen. John Lewis, suffered horrific beatings at the hands of racist police officers and community members.
The tragedy sparked a fire in President Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which allowed majority-minority districts to be created and gave voters the right to sue if they feel government officials are trying to limit their voting rights based on race.
Fast forward to 2025. American citizens fighting against police brutality in the name of victims like George Floyd, Sandra Bland and Ahmaud Arbrey, during Black Lives Matter protests. Masked vigilantes have marched the streets of major cities and majority Black communities like Lincoln Heights, Ohio, in an attempt to intimidate residents, as outlined in Project 2025 .
Black Americans having the right to vote for leaders that will fight for them is at risk due to Trump’s redistricting plan being in action—all the way to the Supreme Court bench.
Clyburn’s home state is attempting to spearhead efforts which he is opposed to. According to ABC News 4, Republican U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, one of Washington’s most conservative House members, called on the General Assembly of the Palmetto State to redraw its district lines.
He called out Clyburn’s 6th Congressional District directly, calling it “lopsided.” However, the senior lawmaker, who has served since 1992, doesn’t seem to be worried about it as the track record speaks for itself. The district is listed in section two of the Voting Rights Act, after the state fought to give Black voters equitable representation in the 1990s.
“I’m not concerned at all. I know the people of South Carolina very well. I know Ralph Norman very well,” Clyburn said. “I know the governor of this state very well, who is as partisan a Republican as he can be, but he’s as fair a Republican as he can be. Norm doesn’t believe in fairness.”
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