{"id":53166,"date":"2022-10-06T08:22:40","date_gmt":"2022-10-06T15:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=53166"},"modified":"2022-10-06T09:23:48","modified_gmt":"2022-10-06T16:23:48","slug":"alabama-organizers-advocates-gather-in-solidarity-with-milligan-plaintiffs-in-tuesdays-press-conference-focused-on-voting-rights-equitable-representation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=53166","title":{"rendered":"Alabama organizers, advocates gather in solidarity with Milligan plaintiffs in Tuesday’s press conference focused on voting rights, equitable representation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alabama<\/strong> – Grassroots organizers and advocates gathered in the Capitol City Tuesday, Oct. 4, for a Power On The Line<\/a>\u00a0Democracy Day press conference in conjunction with the Milligan v. Merrill Supreme Court oral arguments and to bring awareness to voting rights and the need for equitable representation.<\/p>\n

Power on the Line is a pro-democracy social movement for fair maps and equitable representation.<\/p>\n

Event attendees gathered at the Montgomery Interpretive Center for a press conference in which eventgoers heard from organizers about various topics from voting rights to community issues and an overview of the Milligan v. Merrill case.<\/p>\n

Jerome Dees, policy director, at\u00a0Southern Poverty Law Center\u00a0<\/a>spoke at the event saying that he thinks the Milligan plaintiffs will find success even with the Supreme Court\u2019s new majority conservative leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cConservative justices on the court, as well as the more liberal justices on the court, I think without question were able to see that the plaintiffs were able to present such a map,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dees told the crowd that it is expected that a decision will be handed down sometime in late spring.<\/p>\n

The Rev. Kenneth Dukes of the\u00a0Alabama NAACP<\/a>\u00a0also gave a call to action to eventgoers placing the responsibility for the fight in their hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s our responsibility right now to persuade, to pray for, to inspire this conservative court to look at the law and to rule according to the law and not be partisan based off of their conservative beliefs, but to deal with the law. This affects the entire country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dr. Adia Winfrey, the founder of\u00a0Transform Alabama<\/a>, said that exercising the right to vote is a cornerstone of democracy, but redistricting lines are vital as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2020, I was a democratic nominee for congress in Alabama\u2019s third congressional district,\u201d she said. \u201cI saw firsthand how congressional lines were diluting the voices of Black Alabamians in parts of east Alabama, as well as parts of the Black Belt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camille Bennett, founder of\u00a0Project Say Something\u00a0<\/a>finished out the day by talking about the importance of representation and a voice.<\/p>\n

Bennett spoke about bad bills that organizers have been fighting for the last few years one of those bills being the right to peacefully protest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen black people have no systemic power and no legislative voice, we must protest,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s how we gained our voting rights in the first place. No protest. No votes. No power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winfrey called on Black Alabamians to mobilize and vote in numbers that they have not been voting in.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet the Supreme Court case prove to you that your vote does matter,\u201d she said. \u201cIf it didn\u2019t matter, they wouldn\u2019t care. This wouldn\u2019t be pushed through so fast and the eyes of the World wouldn\u2019t be on us.\u201d<\/p>\n

For those who haven\u2019t registered to vote, the deadline is Oct. 24 for the November 8 General Election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alabama – Grassroots organizers and advocates...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53166"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53168,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53166\/revisions\/53168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}