State Rep. Juandalynn Givan (D-Birmingham) believes that the effort to redraw congressional districts in Alabama is proof that many of her Republican colleagues in the State House are racist.
“[I]f you are trying to take marginalized people, people who have been marginalized since they were brought here from the shores of Africa, and strip them of their representation, which is nine times, if not 10 times out of 10, someone of color, and that is not in the Republican Party, then you have some undertones, or even overtones, of racism,” Givan said Monday on WVNN ‘s “The Dale Jackson Show.”
The Legislature held a special session last week after the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais struck down race-based redistricting. Lawmakers passed bills that are contingency plans that authorize the Secretary of State to call replacement primary elections in affected districts only if a federal court lifts the injunctions currently blocking Alabama from using its Legislature-drawn maps.
“Had the Anglo-Saxon Americans been doing right in the beginning, we probably never would have gotten here,” Givan argued, “but because they tried to disenfranchise us, because they tried to zero black people out, they kept us enslaved for 200 and something years, and even at the year in 1863 when Lincoln freed us, they still kept us enslaved for another almost two and a half to three years. That’s why we celebrate Juneteenth in just a few weeks.”
Democrats, including Givan, held protests last week disrupting the special session. Givan believes the passion was warranted.
“The case that they brought before us, that the Supreme Court ruled on last two weeks ago, gutted the 65 Voting Rights Act with the pre clearance issues that had already been correct, chopped up and gutted in six with the holder decision,” she said.
“The bottom line is, it’s plantation politics. And let me close with this. It’s about numbers, whether we will have seven zero, that means all white, red Republicans. They were all white, red Republican state, five, two with Congresswoman Sewell and Shomari Figures, or we will be a sixth one back to at least having Congresswoman, y’all do the math.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on X @Yaffee
