Kylin Hill Boycotted a State Symbol He Called Racist. Now the NAACP Wants Black Athletes to Challenge Voting Restrictions

When Louisiana legislators redrew congressional maps to restrict Black voting strength, they likely didn’t calculate the cost to the state’s multi-million-dollar sports economy. The NAACP’s new “Out of Bounds” campaign aims to hit those battleground states where it hurts most, calling on elite Black athletes to boycott public universities that profit off their talent while diluting their communities’ political power.

The Root previously reported on the Supreme Court’s bombshell 6–3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which struck down the state’s congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. By forcing the state to redraw its districts, the conservative majority dealt a devastating blow to the Voting Rights Act.

Less than a month later, the bitter legal war over gerrymandered voting maps prompted the NAACP to issue an unprecedented strategic call to action, encouraging Black recruits to withhold their talent from institutions that refuse to protect Black representation.

The campaign, dubbed “Out of Bounds,” is shifting the front lines of civil rights directly into the locker room—seemingly drawing inspiration from Kylin Hill’s public ultimatum in 2020.

If you recall, Hill didn’t just tweet a complaint—he drew a hard line in the Mississippi sand. In June 2020, the then-Mississippi State star running back declared he would refuse to play a single down of football until the Confederate emblem was stripped from the state house flag, ESPN reported at the time.

Within days of his public ultimatum, MSU President Mark Keenum, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey and Hill’s teammates backed his play, The Reflector reported, applying immense financial and cultural pressure on state lawmakers. It worked.

The Mississippi legislature voted overwhelmingly to retire the 126-year-old banner, proving that top-tier athletic talent possesses the leverage to move Southern political mountains. Now, the NAACP wants to use that same gravity to protect the ballot box.

The “Out of Bounds” campaign is a targeted grassroots initiative aimed squarely at the hearts of high-revenue athletic programs. The NAACP is directly engaging with top-tier high school recruits, elite college prospects and their families, explicitly mapping out how their athletic labor funds states that actively “sprint to erase Black political power,” according to Derrick Johnson, President & CEO of the NAACP. 

“These actions happened in days, in some cases in hours, of a Supreme Court ruling that gives extremist lawmakers a playbook to erode Black representation,” Johnson added. “The NAACP will not watch the same institutions that depend on Black athletic prowess to fill their stadiums and their bank accounts remain silent while their states strip Black communities of their voice.” 

To do this, “Out of Bounds” deploys a precise, three-pronged strategy targeting the entire sports ecosystem.

First, it urges Black recruits to withhold their commitments from programs in hostile states. Next, it calls on current college athletes to use their massive personal platforms to elevate the issue on the national stage. Finally, the campaign aims to hit university’s wallets, demanding that fans, alumni, and donors immediately halt spending on tickets, merchandise, and licensed apparel from targeted universities, redirecting those critical dollars to HBCUs instead.

“This generation of Black athletes understands something that those who came before them were never afforded the chance to say so plainly: your talent is yours, and so is your community’s political power,” said Tylik McMillan, National Director, Youth and College Division, NAACP. “These are not separate issues. The state that is working to erase your grandmother’s congressional district is the same state whose governor will stand on the field and celebrate your touchdown or game-winning shot.”