‘They may draw racist maps, but we are the south’: thousands rally in Alabama for Black voting rights | US voting rights
Thousands of people from all over the country flocked to Montgomery, Alabama’s capital, on Saturday. They arrived by bus, car and plane to gather for the All Roads South rally following the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision last month, which gutted the Voting Rights Act and severely limited protections against voting discrimination.
The rally, organized by a coalition of national and local civic engagement groups, took place outside the Alabama state Capitol in the plaza where the Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches (three nonviolent demonstrations in support of Black voting rights) were celebrated in 1965.
“We are here, Montgomery, at a starting point, not a stopping point,” Steven L Reed, mayor of Montgomery and the first Black person to hold the office, told the crowd. “We are in this city with the spirit, courage and devotion of our ancestors and grandfathers who brought us to this point.”
Following the Supreme Court decision, Republican-led states began redrawing voting maps in a way that weakened Black political power. Tennessee and Florida have already adopted the new maps, while Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia appear poised to follow. Mississippi has temporarily paused redistricting efforts, with the state’s governor promising to revisit the issue soon.
Local and national elected officials, including Senators Cory Booker and Raphael Warnock and Representatives Terri Sewell, Shomari Figures, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as voting activists in those states affected by Republican redistricting initiatives, took to the stage to mobilize and energize attendees.
“We have to fight with everything we’ve got,” said Charlane Oliver, a Tennessee state senator who stood on her desk last week to protest the state’s redistricting. “They may draw racist maps, but we are the south, this is our south. The south is ours. The South has something to say and we will speak loud and clear in November.”
Throughout the event, spontaneous chants of “vote, vote, vote” rose from the audience. At times, All Roads to the South felt like a worship event, a reminder of the Black church’s vital role in the civil rights movement. It started with a prayer; When a participant had a medical event, an emcee asked those gathered to “put their praying hands together.” Many gospel songs were played throughout the day.
For many attendees, being at the rally was personal. Family members fought for voting rights. They said it was now up to them to get the banner.
“My grandmother, my mother, my mother-in-law – our ancestors didn’t cross that bridge, they didn’t march during the bus boycott, my cousins were locked in the First Baptist Church [in Montgomery]My other cousin, Carole Burton, a Montgomery resident, was beaten by a horse on Jackson Street, across from the police station, in the ’60s; “We didn’t do all of this for this,” he said.
The day began with a prayer service at the historic Tabernacle Baptist church in Selma, followed by a silent march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the site of the brutal “Bloody Sunday” violence against civil rights marchers in 1965. Those who participated in the protests in Selma went from here to Montgomery by bus, where thousands of people joined them.
All Roads Lead South was not an isolated incident; More than 50 satellite events were planned across the country for people who couldn’t get to Alabama. Speakers also noted that the struggle will continue elsewhere.
“Our mission is bigger than defending the past,” said Rukia Lumumba, director of the Mississippi VRA Rapid Response Coalition and M4BL Action Fund. “Our mission is to build a democracy worthy of the people who shed blood to create it.”
