This story was produced in collaboration with WKNO-FM public radio.
They carried signs reading, “Black Votes Matter,” and “MEMPHIS DEMANDS A VOICE.”
Together, the protesters marched Saturday to protest the Republican-controlled Tennessee General Assembly’s sudden redistricting last week that dismantled District 9, the state’s sole Democratic-controlled congressional seat.
“It’s kind of a messed-up situation,’’ said protester Darnell Gibson, 31. “But the only way we can … get better is to go and vote, and just be super aggressive on that. (They’re) trying to take our vote away. That is not constitutional. That is not humanity.”
Protesters gathered at the I Am A Man Plaza near old Clayborn Temple, headquarters of the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike. Amid chants of “Hands off our vote!” they marched down to the National Civil Rights Museum, known in 1968 as the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
“They want to know if breaking our maps will break our spirit. And we come to tell them no, no, no!” state Rep. Justin J. Pearson, D-Memphis, told the crowd.
Pearson was challenging incumbent Steve Cohen for the Ninth District seat. But following Thursday’s vote, he now lives in a sprawling Fifth District that dissects Memphis and meanders hundreds of miles up into Middle Tennessee.
Republicans contend race has no bearing on the new maps. Pearson and others see it otherwise. The city’s white, wealthy neighborhoods were carved into one district. The majority Black areas were divided and attached to distant white, rural communities.
Democrats say it erases a unified regional voice in Congress.
“They want to know if they can separate us by race, by class, by gender, by identity, and that that would stop us from building this solidarity dividend and this movement,’’ Pearson said. “But our answer to them is No!”
Martese Chism, great-granddaughter of civil rights activist Birdia Keglar, said voting rights is once again a civil rights priority.
“What we’re going to need now in 2026 is people power. Power to the people No justice, no peace,’’ Chism said.
Will Richardson, who recently won a primary for a County Commission seat, said the maps create a bigger divide between local and state government.
“So, I’m asking everybody, ‘Don’t leave here today thinking that the job is done.’ This is just the beginning. And as long as we are partnered together and the room looks like this, then (there isn’t) a damn thing that Nashville can do to stop Shelby County from giving that to where it belongs.”
