“I want to point out something going on specifically about Black political power that I think Republicans did not expect, because Republicans all over the country this year have taken the Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court’s dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, and they have used it to start a radical, radical effort to constrict Black voting power in the United States of America,” she said on “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
Watch Maddow’s segment below:
The conservative majority Supreme Court effectively killed the Voting Rights Act earlier this year, pushing Republicans to redraw congressional districts and try to eliminate majority-Black voting districts.
“In state after state, Republicans have been engaged in redrawing congressional districts, not just to entrench themselves in power, but specifically to take power away from minority voters and Black voters in particular,” Maddow said. “Well, in response to that, we are now seeing, in state after state, that people have something to say about that, too.”
She noted that in Georgia, massive protests erupted in June when conservatives in the state attempted to redraw legislative maps, leading to Republicans scrapping the plan.
Memphis pastor the Rev. Earle Fisher told Maddow he thought “the anger … was palpable” because people knew “the racist redistricting was unjust” and wanted to respond to it.
“I don’t think that they calculated the moral force of Black leadership and our capacity to motivate our people and to allow them to see a vision of what’s possible, even when the odds are stacked against them,” he said.