Alabama’s Black voters seek chance to be heard after years of being silenced
Montgomery, the state’s capital, is included in a new congressional district, and on Tuesday, a runoff will decide who stands in November
Montgomery,
Alabama is the birthplace of the Confederacy and of the civil rights movement. Its history speaks volumes about the state of American democracy. It is perhaps ironic, then, how the last generation of its voters have largely been silenced.
For decades, Alabama’s capital city has been split between two or three different congressional districts – a deliberate effort by state leaders to prevent power from accreting to Black voters. Recently the region has been represented by a white Freedom Caucus Republican. But last year a bruising court battle forced Alabama to redraw its district lines, finally placing the entire city and a wide swath of Alabama’s Black Belt of African American residents in the same congressional district.
The runoff for the newly drawn congressional district is Tuesday. Now Montgomery – and Alabama’s Black voters – have to be heard by anyone who wants to serve them in Congress.
“We want somebody who is philosophically aligned with the city,” said Steven Reed, the mayor of Montgomery. “On issues around voting rights, on issues around healthcare, Medicaid expansion and access to healthcare, we would like to have an advocate.”
“From our standpoint, there’s a tremendous need for the congressman to be able to leverage their position in the United States House of Representatives to bring resources back.”
Dexter Avenue in Montgomery is a living monument to civil rights leaders. Stand at the bottom of the hill next to a bronze statue of Rosa Parks and look up, past the first church Martin Luther King led – a church founded on the site of ...
SOURCE