The 4th congressional district was created in 1843, the first new district in the state in 20 years. It was gained after the 1840 U.S. census.
For most of the next 150 years, the 4th was centered on Shreveport and northwestern Louisiana. However, in 1993, Louisiana lost a congressional district, based on population figures. The state legislature shifted most of Shreveport's white residents into the 5th congressional district. Republican Jim McCrery ran for election in the new 5th and won, defeating Democrat Jerry Huckaby, who represented the old 5th for eight terms.
Meanwhile, the 4th was reconfigured as a 63-percent African American-majority district, stretching in a roughly "Z" shape from Shreveport to Baton Rouge. DemocratCleo Fields was elected for two terms as the representative of the 4th congressional district. When the Supreme Court of the United States invalidated the boundaries of the new 4th congressional district as unconstitutional, the Louisiana legislature redrew the district to encompass most of Northwest Louisiana, closely resembling its pre-1993 configuration. It is white majority. McCrery was elected in 1996 to this seat.
The 2024 Allen v. Milligan decision dictated a new map to be drawn to be African American-majority; as such, the 4th district contributes parts of Shreveport, half of DeSoto Parish, and most of Natchitoches and St Landry Parishes to the redrawn 6th district, while absorbing Lincoln, Jackson, Winn, and part of Rapides Parish from the 5th.[4] This also shifted the 4th from being the state's most competitive district with a Cook PVI of R+14 to the most solidly Republican with a PVI of R+26.