Black Women Are Turning the Supreme Court Ruling Into a Battle Cry

The flurry of direct attacks on voting rights in the South has thrust voters, candidates, and organizers into a state of chaos and confusion in the midst of an election season. 

It’s a result of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which weakened protections under the Voting Rights Act. It allowed several states, including Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carolina, a rushed opportunity to redraw their congressional maps. Republican legislators see it as a way to gerrymander the districts in their favor. 

But Black women say they aren’t letting it slide. 

Former Vice President Kamala Harris called the Supreme Court decision an “unapologetic” feat to play politics with people’s access to the ballot box. 

“Here’s how I think about it, what they are doing is they are back-dooring racism behind politics to get to this decision and to justify then what is happening in all the Southern states,” Harris said. “This is obviously a time for us to fight.”

Harris’ remarks were met by hundreds of comments, reactions, and emojis by more than 5,000 women who showed up on Zoom call this week organized by Win With Black Women. In 2024, the same network galvanized over 44,000 women nationwide who, within three hours, raised more than $1.5 million to support Harris’ run for the presidency.

Two years later, the coalition is still building on the momentum. 

Inspired by the Civil Rights Movement, the group is launching a grassroots campaign called “All Roads Lead to the South” in response to the rollback of voting rights. The mass mobilization movement will start on May 16, when thousands will descend on Alabama. The morning will begin with a prayer and walk across the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, then a mass rally at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery.

This new era calls for a modern Freedom Summer, which makes Alabama the perfect place to gather, added DeJuana Thompson, organizer and founder of Woke Vote, an organization dedicated to voter outreach and turnout.

“It is about saying that, yes, we are coming back to some of the places where it started and where we thought we had put it to bed,” she said. “Since they picked it back up, we’re gonna pick it back up with the same traditions that we know work. So we’re coming back to the memory.”

It’s not only about honoring memory or affirming Black political power, but re-dedication to the movement, said LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter.

“This is not about those who seek to oppress us. They represent the relics of the past,” Brown said. “We are the future. We’re going to create the America that we desire and we deserve.” 

The South is a playbook for the nation 

For Black Southerners, the gutting of the Voting Rights Act isn’t an isolated incident but the culmination of a decades-old fight to protect Black political power, state lawmakers say. 

On the same evening, Emerge, a national organization dedicated to connect, recruit, and train Democratic women to run for office, hosted a virtual call focused on the redistricting crisis in the South, which also included a special appearance from Harris. 

Calling in from their offices and state legislatures, Democratic women lawmakers from Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Tennessee, expressed their concerns around voter suppression and confusion. 

In Tennessee, where Republican Gov. Bill Lee called for a special election to redraw maps, Memphis, the state’s only majority-Black district, could be split into three new districts. 

State Rep. London Lamar says she believe the attempt to help Republicans gain one more seat through redistricting will backfire because Black Memphians are fired up and will use the energy to head to the polls in record turnout.

“What happened in Tennessee is a playbook for the rest of the nation,” Lamar said. “Some of our states stopped this this week, but unfortunately, Tennessee didn’t, so we’re going to do everything we can to fight back and make sure we turn out our people to vote to bring our districts back.”

The motivation to keep going stems from seeing younger generations engage in the fight, as well as support from peers, lawmakers say. For Alabama state Sen. Merika Coleman, it’s also about how the previous generations were able to persevere. She called back to “Bloody Sunday,” the site where 600 people were brutally beaten by police officers for marching to secure voting rights. It happened on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the same place where the mass mobilization effort will begin this week.

“I used to wonder, if I was alive during the movement, what would I have done? Would I have marched the streets of Birmingham? Would I have been one of those songbirds like my grandfather was? Would I have sat at a lunch counter? Would I have participated in a boycott?” Coleman reflected. 

She added: “None of us can wonder anymore because we’re in the moment right now. We’ve won before; we’re going to have to pull that playbook back out and use it again. We don’t have to wonder anymore. I don’t have to wonder. Our time is now.”

The post Black Women Are Turning the Supreme Court Ruling Into a Battle Cry appeared first on Capital B News.