Thousands of Mississippians, along with allies from other southern states, gathered at the state’s War Memorial Building auditorium on Wednesday in support of voting rights. It was the latest in a series of actions protesting the supreme court’s recent decision gutting the provision of the Voting Rights Act preventing racial discrimination, and held on a site integral to the state’s history of Black disenfranchisement.
Section 2 “stopped states, counties, cities, from passing redistricting maps that discriminate against Black voters and it led to the biggest growth of Black political power since Reconstruction”, said Amir Badat, the southern states director at the voting rights group Fair Fight Action.
“And now, the Roberts court has opened the door to the biggest destruction of Black political power since the end of Reconstruction.”
The rally was led by a coalition of organizations, including People’s Advocacy Institute, Mississippi Votes, Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign, One Voice, Fair Fight, Mississippi for a Just World and NAACP, among them. It followed the “All Roads Lead to the South” rally in Montgomery, Alabama, over the weekend.