MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A delegation of activists boarded buses in Atlanta bound for Montgomery, Alabama, early Saturday morning.

The delegation gathered at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 613 headquarters prior to departing for the Alabama State Capitol, where they will join a national coalition of more than 250 organizations demanding an end to the attack on Black voting rights in the South.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to do away with the Voting Rights Act, organizers warn that Southern statehouses are resurrecting Jim Crow and erasing Black representation and democracy along with it.

The All Roads Lead to the South National Day of Action rally takes place Saturday at the Alabama State Capitol from 12 pm to 5:30 pm CST. 

“When Black people gained the right to vote in America, we provided for the expansion of democracy for everyone in this country. Our participation in this democracy elected representation that passed laws codifying a woman’s right to choose, the expansion of civil rights for the LGBTQIA+ community, and the right of children of immigrants to citizenship. All of what is under attack right now was held in place and protected by the power of the Black vote. MAGA’s Project 2025 is fully operational and has come for the Black vote. These are, indeed, perilous times,” said Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the Chicago Teachers Union. “Our country has faced this moment before, and every time, the question has been whether we move forward toward fulfilling this country’s promise of democracy or return to a marginal and dysfunctional Jim Crow past. It has been organized people, in solidarity and in coalition with their neighbors, who have not only sustained our country but expanded its capacity. The Confederates should know they lost before and will lose this time around as well.”

“When Black communities in the South sound the alarm, we show up. These attacks on voting rights are attacks on working people. The labor movement is the determining factor in whether authoritarianism wins or loses. We are going to Montgomery ready to stand with them,” said Neidi Dominguez, Executive Director of Organized Power in Numbers (OPIN).

“Jim Crow didn’t just come for the ballot. It came for anyone who tried to organize and have a voice. Today, the bridges we have to cross are not only in Selma. Efforts to rollback equality and democracy are happening in the occupied cities, shop floors and now the halls of the Capitol across the country,” said Erica Smiley, Executive Director of Jobs With Justice.

“Workers have to organize together if we want to survive. We have to remember that our rights at work and our rights at home are linked. If we let Black voters across the South be disenfranchised, it’s only a matter of time before the rest of us are too,” said Jimmy Williams Jr., General President of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.

“We will not allow the revolutionary labor and sacrifices of our parents, our grandparents, our ancestors to be undone. Black people and Black movement will fight for what’s ours, and today is just the beginning,” said Rukia Lumumba, Director of the Electoral Justice Project, Movement for Black Lives.

“In Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court handed states a blueprint to erase Black representation, and Tennessee used it immediately to redraw Memphis’s Black district off the map. We are going to Montgomery because our communities across the South and across the country know what is at stake when power is snatched from Black communities. Court decisions will not keep us from the fight for a world and a democracy rooted in dignity and freedom for all people,” Khalil Cole, National Co-Director of Rising Majority.

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