John Lewis was beaten at bus depots in South Carolina and Montgomery. Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot dead in a parking lot. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated outside of his hotel room. Viola Liuzzo was killed by three KKK members. Reverend Robert Graetz and his wife Jeannie had their home bombed three times. Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth’s home and church were bombed numerous times.
These were the costs—a tiny fraction of them—of daring to stand up for Black voting rights in Alabama, and across the confederate South.
Men and women—white and Black—paid steep prices for their fight for equal rights, for equal voting opportunities for people of all races. They were mind-bendingly brave, often refusing to cede ground even when they knew full well that their defiance to injustice would cost them dearly—if not their lives then certainly their health or their wealth.
Most of us know these stories, even if we don’t fully appreciate them. And we know the results of that bravery—the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, the basic dignity of being treated with something at least approaching equality.
It is something that we have celebrated in this state. It is something that many of us have looked at with pride—because the defeat of a prevailing mindset of oppression is something that does not come easily and is something that should be honored and never forgotten.
It’s also something that rarely remains unchallenged.
This week, Alabama Republicans have sought to undo a good portion of those achievements in the wake of a partisan and regressive Supreme Court opinion that sought to roll back voting rights protections for the historically disenfranchised by giving states, like Alabama, a roadmap to a wink-and-nod method for redrawing voting districts. In a matter of hours, Alabama Republicans, who for years have moved like sloths on issues of human suffering and systemic unfairness, had sprung into action with the hopes of divvying up voting districts in a manner that eliminates all Black representation at the federal level and reduces it to a bare minimum at the state level.
Because in 2026, those who seek to disenfranchise have learned it is a much more acceptable practice if done with a pen and a look of feigned innocence instead of with a bomb and a scowl.
I seriously wonder how these white people do not see the future and the manner in which they will be remembered—the way that they will be portrayed in the stories that we tell of this time. Because it will not be kindly. They will not be the heroes. They will not be the ones whose grandchildren proudly recount their tales of public service.
Because there is no public service here. I suspect they know this, which is why not a single Alabama Republican lawmaker rose to offer a word of defense for what they’re doing.
At best, what Alabama Republicans hope to achieve this week is cheating. They want to do something that we teach our children is wrong. And if those children dare tell us that they’re only cheating because some other people in some other state are also cheating, we look at them with disappointment and explain how that other wrong never makes their wrong a right.
But let’s be honest here, because we all know that this is far more than cheating. It is disenfranchisement. It is a dilution of Black voting power. It is rendering the Black vote to be lesser than the white vote.
You can make all of the excuses that you like. You can say that it’s not about race, but about partisan politics. You can pretend that you’re not disenfranchising Black voters, but merely want to disenfranchise Democrats who happen to be Black. You can pretend that in today’s world of team politics that the ends justify the means.
But you know better.
We know the history here. We know about the fight. We know about the atrocities and the suffering and the deaths and the beatings. My God, just a few blocks from where you’re trying to pass this hateful legislation, there’s an entire world famous museum that documents the thousands of lynchings.
You can look out of the front windows of the state capitol building and see the church where Dr. King preached—the same one that was fire bombed. You can see the steps where the marchers from Selma arrived in 1965. If you squint, you can see the corner where Rosa Parks was arrested and started a movement.
You know full well how hard they fought and what they sacrificed just for the opportunity to be treated equally, to have their vote count equally, to attain representation for their communities so that their troubles and struggles could be heard and addressed by the government that we were all promised would treat everyone equally.
That’s what you’re taking away. It doesn’t matter what you call it. It doesn’t matter how you justify it so you can sleep a little better.
Gerrymandering that cracks and packs Black voters is no different than making them accurately guess the number of marbles in the jar before being allowed to cast a ballot. The effect is the same. And they know it.
Which is why there is but one counter to it.
Those men and women who fought so hard and risked so much during the Civil Rights Movement left behind one thing—your right to vote. It might be weakened by the current Supreme Court and a political party trying its damndest to shut you out, but it still holds the power in this state to even the fight. It’s a shame that it has to be this way, but you’re going to have to fight as hard to keep those voting rights as those civil rights greats fought to get them.
The good news is that you’re not nearly as alone as they were. There are a lot of people of all races who don’t take kindly to the unfairness, to the ugliness, to the pettiness and to the downright un-American-ness of it all.
Just remember this: They wouldn’t be trying so hard to take your voting power away unless they were scared to death that you were going to use it.
