‘We’re ready to fight’: Thousands protest Mississippi redistricting and rally for voting rights ...Middle East

Blocks away from where state lawmakers will consider redrawing Mississippi’s political maps to reduce Black representation in government, thousands of people gathered Wednesday in Jackson to protest those efforts and mobilize people to vote in November.  

The energy from the crowd was so palpable and raucous at times that some of the event’s speakers had to pause their remarks to let the attendees participate in rounds of chants, shouting, “No justice, no peace.”

FAQ: Mississippi redistricting. Why does it matter? What’s being considered?

Wednesday’s rally was a rebuke of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling weakening the federal Voting Rights Act and efforts by Republicans across the South to redraw electoral districts to weaken Black voting strength. The participants protested those efforts by sporting shirts that called for fair political districts and waving signs that said, “No Jim Crow maps.” 

The target for some of the redistricting efforts in Mississippi is U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, the state’s lone Democrat and Black member in Congress, who frequently draws the anger of Mississippi Republicans and President Donald Trump. 

“I’m mad as hell about them calling Congressman Thompson a terror,” said U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, a Democrat from Illinois who attended the rally. 

Jackson, son of the late Rev. Jesse Jackson, was referring to a comment Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves made on a radio show earlier this month, where he said that Thompson’s “reign of terror” in the state’s 2nd Congressional District would soon end. 

Thompson told the crowd on Wednesday that GOP leaders will soon have a “fight on their hands” if they want to redraw the state’s congressional districts by slicing up the majority-Black Delta and Jackson metro area and putting those regions into majority-white districts. 

“We can’t let short-minded people turn us back,” Thompson said. “Now, we don’t have to act like the crazy folks did on January 6, but you’re going to know we’re upset.”   

READ MORE: ‘We’re going backwards.’ Mississippians share experiences of voter suppression, dread of redistricting battle

Some Republicans in the state and the Trump White House have pushed for Mississippi lawmakers to redraw the state’s four congressional districts to make it difficult for Thompson to win reelection. 

But several politicians at the rally, such as Scott Colom, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate this year, criticized Reeves’ comments, noting Thompson has a history of sending federal dollars to Mississippi, one of the poorest states in the nation. 

“The issue with that is I don’t remember Gov. Reeves sending back the money that Congressman Thompson voted to give for infrastructure,” Colom said. 

For now, Reeves has cancelled a special legislative session for lawmakers to redraw the state’s Supreme Court voting map. The session was supposed to have begun Wednesday. But Reeves said in an interview earlier this month that he expects the Legislature to redraw Mississippi’s congressional, state legislative and judicial districts before the 2027 state election cycle. 

House Speaker Jason White on Wednesday said he expects the governor to call lawmakers into a special session soon to redraw state legislative districts. 

Historians, state lawmakers, national advocates, members of Congress and civil rights attorneys spoke at Wednesday’s rally, called Day of Action, aimed at bring generations of voters together to rebel against the redistricting efforts and mobilize them to vote during the upcoming midterm election.

“We will not be erased,” said state Rep. Kabir Karriem of Columbus, chairman of the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus. “We’re not going anywhere. And if you think you’re going to get rid of us, you’ve got another thing coming.” 

Southern states, led by white Republicans, have raced to redraw their congressional districts and erode majority-Black districts after the recent high court ruling. 

“In the 250th year of the country, the nation has decided to double down on the idea that it is a white republic,” said Eddie Glaude, a nationally recognized academic and political pundit who grew up in Moss Point. 

The Rev. Jerry Jefferson, president of the Okitibbeha County Branch of the NAACP, drove over two hours from Starkville to attend the rally. Jefferson, donning a “I FIGHT FOR VOTING RIGHTS” shirt, said the memory of prior civil rights struggles still looms large for him and many other attendees at the Jackson Convention Center on Wednesday.

“Once again, every time we try to go up the social ladder, political ladder or whatever it is, there’s always somebody who’s going to come try to cut our feet from under us and put us down to where we were before. But we refuse to go back,” Jefferson said.

The rush of some Southern states to redraw districts ahead of midterm elections caused several speakers to compare the erasure of majority-Black districts to fights during the Civil Rights Movement to gain voting rights for Black people and to the end of Reconstruction in the Deep South, when the federal government returned control to state leaders and they began enacting discriminatory laws and trying to intimidate Black voters. 

Rep. Bryant Clark, a Democrat from Holmes County whose father Robert Clark in 1967 became the first Black person elected to the Mississippi Legislature in the modern era, said today’s efforts to reduce Black officials mirror the decision of white lawmakers in the 19th century to disenfranchise Black voters by enacting Jim Crow laws. 

“It’s the same fight, same song, second verse,” Clark said. 

The national NAACP has responded to this by calling on Black athletes and fans to boycott the athletic programs of public universities in states that are taking steps to reduce Black representation in politics, including in Mississippi.

If Black athletes participate in the boycott, it could drain rosters for powerhouse football programs and deplete revenues.

Derrick Johnson, the national NAACP president, on Wednesday at the rally compared predominantly white universities using many Black student athletes as a revenue source while not standing up for Black voices to a type of “sharecropping.”

“We don’t believe in sharecropping,” said Johnson, who lives in Mississippi. “We should not perform on the football fields or basketball courts where they cannot generate a profit.”

The rally ended with Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones urging the participants to channel their anger against efforts to reduce Black voting strength into voting in the federal midterm election on Nov. 3. 

“If you can get 5,000 people together on a Wednesday in the rain, then I believe you can get so many more on a Tuesday in November,” Jones said.

Mississippi Today reporter Michael Goldberg contributed to this report.

Eddie Glaude is a member of the board of directors for Deep South Today, parent company of Mississippi Today.

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