MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA — Thousands of people rallied Saturday in Montgomery, Alabama, to push back against conservative states' efforts to dismantle congressional districts that helped secure Black political representation. The gathering, titled "All Roads Lead to the South," was organized in response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened the Voting Rights Act and prompted a rush by southern states to redraw district lines.

Attendees arrived by bus, car, and plane and assembled in front of the Alabama Capitol, where the Confederacy was formed in 1861 and where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the end of the Selma-to-Montgomery Voting Rights March in 1965. Statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and civil rights icon Rosa Parks flanked the stage. A prayer service at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Selma and a silent walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge preceded the Montgomery rally. More than 50 satellite events were scheduled across the country for people who could not travel.

Civil rights leaders, Democratic members of Congress, union leaders, and pastors addressed the crowd. Voting activists from Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Georgia took the stage alongside Senators Cory Booker and Raphael Warnock and Representatives Terri Sewell and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Spontaneous chants of "vote, vote, vote" emerged from the audience, and multiple gospel songs were performed.

Rev. Bernice King spoke near the spot where her father addressed voting rights marchers in 1965. "Sixty-one years later, we come back as new generations to this same hallowed place to reclaim and redeem that legacy because the recent Supreme Court decision demands our presence. It was not only a legal decision, y'all, it is a moral disgrace and a shameless assault on Black political power," she said. King added: "It strikes at the very heart of my father's and my mother's sacrifice and is a direct attack on the generations who faced dogs and batons and bombs and billy clubs so that Black people and all marginalized communities could participate fully in this democracy."

"The bottom line is we are seeing a full-fledged, coordinated attack on Black political power that can actually reshape the entire political landscape, not just on the South but throughout the nation," said LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter. She also said, "We're picking up where it was left because we still have unfinished business. There will not be a new Jim Crow."

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told the crowd, "They think they can draw us out of power. They do not know the sleeping giant that they just awakened."

The recent Supreme Court ruling involved a Louisiana case and followed a 2013 decision that had already narrowed the Voting Rights Act. That 2013 ruling helped clear the way for stricter voter ID laws, registration restrictions, and limits on early voting and changes to polling places in states that once needed federal preclearance to change voting laws.

Montgomery is home to one of the congressional districts being altered in the wake of the recent ruling. In 2023, a federal court redrew Alabama's 2nd Congressional District after ruling that the state intentionally diluted the voting power of Black residents, who make up about 27% of its population. The court said there should be a district where Black people are a majority or near-majority and have an opportunity to elect their candidate of choice. The Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for a different map that could let the GOP reclaim the seat. Alabama plans to hold special primaries on August 11 under the new map while litigation continues, and a three-judge panel scheduled a May 22 hearing on a request to stop the state from switching maps.