Louisiana creates a majority-Black 4th District and Cleo Fields wins the seat

Louisiana drew a new majority-Black 4th Congressional District as part of the 1990 reapportionment cycle, responding to VRA Section 2 obligations after the 1982 amendments. The district, stretching in a Z-shape from Shreveport to Baton Rouge with a 63 percent Black majority, allowed Cleo Fields, a 29-year-old state senator, to win the seat in November 1992 — becoming the first Black congressman from Louisiana since Reconstruction to represent a non-New Orleans district. Lawsuits challenging the district were filed the day Fields arrived in Congress.