‘We will not go back to Jim Crow’: thousand of Mississippians rally for voting rights | Mississippi
Thousands of Mississippians, along with allies from other southern states, gathered at the state’s War Memorial Building auditorium on Wednesday to support voting rights. It was the latest in a series of protests protesting the Supreme Court’s recent decision striking down the Voting Rights Act’s anti-segregation provision, and was held at a site that is integral to the state’s history of Black disenfranchisement.
Amir Badat, southern states director for the voting rights group Fair Fight Action, said Section 2 “prevented states, counties, and cities from passing redistricting maps that discriminated against Black voters, leading to the greatest growth of Black political power since Reconstruction.”
“And now the Roberts court has opened the door to the greatest destruction of Black political power since the end of Reconstruction.”
The rally was led by a coalition of organizations including the People’s Advocacy Institute, Mississippi Votes, Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign, One Voice, Fair Fight, Mississippi for a Just World and the NAACP. This follows an “All Roads Lead South” rally in Montgomery, Alabama, over the weekend.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v Callais, southern states have sought to redraw congressional districts and weaken Black political power in the process. Republicans in Florida signed a new map shortly after the supreme court decision was announced. Republicans in Tennessee eliminated the state’s Black congressional district, and Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and Georgia are taking turns.
Mississippi, whose population is nearly 40% black, was initially poised to enter the redistricting battleground with the state’s governor, Tate Reeves, calling for a special session on May 20. Reeves later reversed his decision but said he expected the state to redraw maps before the 2027 election.
In 1890, following Reconstruction, white supremacist Mississippi legislators gathered at the Old Capitol next to the War Memorial, the site of the rally, and enacted the state’s constitution. “Mississippi Plan” Disenfranchising black voters.
The special session Reeves called was scheduled to be held at the Old Capitol, which was also the site that effectively led to Jim Crow coming to Mississippi.
“We had to come here to the scene of the crime because it was time to arrest the state of Mississippi,” said Danyelle Holmes, senior social justice organizer for Violation Repairers and the Poor People’s Campaign. “We come today to state that we will not go back to the days of Jim Crow. We will not go back to 1890. We are a people who will take a stand and fight.”
Scores of people waved signs bearing images of legendary civil rights activist Medgar Evers, Mississippi’s NAACP field secretary who was killed for his efforts to secure the votes of Black Mississippians. Holding signs reading “Save Our Vote” and “Jim Crow Must Go,” the crowd listened as speakers, activists and advocates warned against redistricting efforts in southern states. They sang freedom songs popularized by the civil rights movement; participated in calls, responses, and prayers evoking black churches; and they stood up to march through downtown Jackson.
The crowd from the Old Capitol, chanting slogans, passed the state capitol, governor’s mansion, state and local buildings and moved on to the Jackson Convention Complex, where the rally continued. There the crowd reached thousands of people.
On the convention stage, the crowd heard from representative Bennie Thompson, NAACP president Derrick Johnson, author Eddie Glaude and others, whose district Reeves and other Mississippi Republicans clearly plan to target.
Tennessee state representative Justin Jones drove six hours from Nashville to attend the rally. He helped bring the rally to the convention complex along with student activists from Mississippi for a Just World.
“We’re not going down without a fight. We may not be a swing state in Mississippi, Tennessee or Alabama, but we’ll come back to you,” he told the audience. “We will fight with everything we have. We come with the spirit of our ancestors. We come with the spirit of those who are not afraid of bully clubs and water hoses. We are an intergenerational movement. We come as one, but we stand as 10,000.”
