Alabama’s high-stakes Supreme Court fight over racial gerrymandering, explained

Cases alleging racial gerrymandering are notoriously difficult to litigate, much less to win. And the path that brought Merrill v. Milligan to the Supreme Court — the justices will hear the case on Tuesday — shows why.

The lawsuit deals with Alabama’s congressional maps, which would give only one of the state’s seven congressional districts — 14 percent of the state’s total population — a real chance of electing a Black representative, even though African Americans make up about 27 percent of Alabama’s population.

In a decision handed down in January, a panel...