'We will not go back to Jim Crow': thousand of Mississippians rally for voting rights

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Guardian

Wed 20 May 2026 17.36 EDT
Last modified on Wed 20 May 2026 17.46 EDT


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. Since the supreme court decision in Louisiana v Callais, southern states have scrambled to redraw their congressional districts and dilute Black political power in the process. Florida’s Republicans signed a new map shortly after the supreme court decision came down. Republicans in Tennessee eliminated the state’s one Black congressional district and Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and Georgia are all moving in turn.

Mississippi, whose population is nearly 40% Black, was initially set to enter the redistricting battlefield, with Tate Reeves, the state’s governor, calling a special session to be held on 20 May. Reeves since reversed his decision, though he said he expects the state to redraw maps before elections in 2027. In 1890, following Reconstruction, white supremacist Mississippi legislators met at the Old Capitol – next to the War Memorial, the site of the rally – and enacted the state’s constitution, which implemented the “Mississippi Plan” to disenfranchise Black voters.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/20/mississippi-voting-rights-rally

[OldBaldy1701E]

1. Too late, Red State!

You should have thought of that long before now.