(RNS) — Nearly 100 faith and voting rights leaders plan to gather in Selma and Montgomery, Alabama, on Saturday (May 16) as part of a rally in protest of the recent Supreme Court decision that hollowed out a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
The “All Roads Lead to the South” rally intends to launch a national movement to counter the ruling’s trickle-down effects on Black Americans’ political power, particularly in Southern states. Organizers expect nearly 5,000 people to attend.
The rally is in response to the April 29 court ruling, which declared Louisiana’s attempt to add a second Black-majority district on its congressional map unconstitutional — effectively gutting the landmark civil-rights era law that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. State legislatures in Tennessee and Alabama have expeditiously redrawn congressional maps in the wake of the decision.
The mobilization event, organized by Black Voters Matter, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund, expects 75 buses of activists from Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi and other Southern states, with the aim to “channel national awareness, resources, and support to the state and local organizations on the frontlines,” organizers wrote in a press release.
The “No Kings” coalition, which has held three massive national demonstrations in protest of the Trump administration’s policies, plans on …