“I Ain't Trying to Go Back There": Alabama Leaders Warn Redistricting Push Threatens Black Voting Power

In a charged Montgomery town hall Thursday night, Democratic leaders and civil rights advocates issued an alarming warning: Alabama is poised to dismantle the political representation Black voters fought decades to secure. The state's special session on redistricting, energized by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Louisiana v. Callais, threatens to roll back gains achieved through Allen v. Milligan, where a federal panel found Alabama had unlawfully diluted Black voting power with intentional discrimination.

U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures (AL-02) reminded attendees that the court was forced to step in and impose a map creating opportunity districts after Alabama refused to comply. Yet the Louisiana ruling now offers states a roadmap to defend racially disparate maps under the guise of partisanship, a direct threat to Black political power across the South.

The emotional weight of what's at stake was undeniable. Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, recalling growing up in Alabama's Black Belt, declared: "So I feel like you're ready to put me back in that cotton field again. Now, if I can't own the cotton field, I ain't trying to go back there." Civil rights icon Sheyann Webb-Christburg, the youngest marcher in Selma, warned, "We must be reminded that civil rights is never secured permanently. So our call to action has come again."

Speakers rejected mischaracterizations of the court-drawn maps, insisting these aren't guaranteed Black wins but fair chances. "They're not drawing Black districts. They're drawing opportunity districts," one panelist explained. "We don't want a Black victory. We don't want a guaranteed victory. We just want an opportunity that they have a legitimate opportunity to win if voters come out."

House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels dismissed the special session as "at best a horse and pony show," but stressed turnout among 106,000 inactive Black voters and 620,000 inconsistent Black voters could decisively counter the assault. As Figures bluntly put it: "Nothing has changed in the state of Alabama right now,"  but the fight to keep it that way has only begun.

Link: WSFA