They sang, chanted, cried and set off 600 personal safety alarms that filled the capitol building with wailing sirens.
Memphians and their allies couldn’t stop state Republicans from carving Memphis’ congressional District 9 into thirds — a result of Republican political dominance in the state government. Memphians came anyway, to disrupt the effort to diminish their voting power, and make their opposition clear. They also began planning the next phase of the fight for fair representation.
“Yes, we want folks to mobilize to the capitol and make sure our voices are heard, that resistance is there, but we also understand that our response could not just be outrage. It has to be long-term power building,” said Rachael Goodwin Spriggs, state director of power building with The Equity Alliance.
The goal of the new maps is to make all nine of Tennessee’s congressional districts Republican. GOP lawmakers split Memphis’ Black voters across three new districts that stretch deep into rural Tennessee and, in one case, the outskirts of Nashville. In District 9, Memphians have elected Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen for the last 19 years.
The redistricting effort represents “the largest attack in Tennessee’s modern history on the rights of voters, particularly Black voters in a majority Black city,” said Sekou Franklin, NAACP political action chair, in testimony Wednesday.
The move followed the Supreme Court’s decision to allow maps that dilute minority voting power as long as there is no evidence that “intentional discrimination occurred.” During the three-day special session, Republican lawmakers repeatedly insisted that the maps had been drawn solely based on “politics and population.”
Republicans said they used census data to redraw the maps, but refused to answer questions about how they used it. The census does not include information about party affiliation. Some legislators went so far as to say they were “not privy” to the demographics of Memphis and Shelby County. And, they refused to say who drew the maps.
“The three districts you drew up have 29% Black, 29% Black and 30 point something Black. You divided the Black population in Shelby County exactly just about the same, cutting it up, dicing it up, slicing it up, so that they wouldn’t have an impact on any district,” Cohen said while testifying. “Somebody knew what they were doing and used race as a basis to divide the Black population up.”
‘You won’t hear a minute of peace’
Protesters came to Nashville with a strategy: To make sure that Republican legislators faced the people whose voices they were seeking to silence.
As bills supporting the redistricting and the maps themselves were passed Thursday, Memphians and their supporters packed the state capitol building. They flooded the large atrium that sits between the House and Senate chambers and filled the balconies of both chambers. In the atrium or rotunda, the crowd forced Republican lawmakers to walk past boos and chants of “shame, shame” as they walked to the House and Senate chambers.
Throughout the morning, Democrat legislators blasted the redistricting plan.
Rep. Johnny Shaw, D-Bolivar, described how, when he was a child, his father “was put out of his home” after registering to vote. The family was forced to quickly flee their home, and his father was unable to cast his ballot, he said.
As representatives spoke about the bill, the sound of singing echoed through the wooden doors from the rotunda. In the balconies, where viewers had been warned to remain silent or be removed, they held signs.
The Democrats proposed dozens of amendments that would require more transparency for the public, ban gerrymandering and require that minority votes not be diluted. The Republicans voted each down. Rep. Gabby Salinas, D-Memphis, posted on Instagram that she’d had other amendments that were thrown out by the speaker, not heard at all.
At one point, a loud whistling noise filled the chambers, and troopers began to clear audience members out of one of the House balconies. Three people refused to move: KeShaun Pearson, the brother of State Rep. Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, Lauren Wexner and Alison Wetter. The three were taken to jail and booked, although the charges were ultimately dismissed, Wexner said.
Justin Pearson hugged his brother as he was put inside a police van, before heading back to the floor to cast his vote. “Today you take the only majority Black district from us, but I want you to know no matter what you do, no matter how much you try to break us and lynch us and make us quit, we will still be here,” he said.
The House also heard from the newly-appointed Rep. T.J. Hardaway, who was sworn in Thursday morning to serve out the remainder of his father’s term. Rep. GA Hardaway died unexpectedly on April 24.
“A body of people who have already been disadvantaged are threatened with more disadvantage,” Hardaway said.
Later, Hardaway told MLK50: Justice Through Journalism that opposition to redistricting was his father’s “last unfinished project.”
“I want to be in a position to make sure that (his constituents) have every opportunity to be heard,” Hardaway said.
As the Democrats used their allotted time and Republicans began to speak, audience members in the remaining House gallery burst out shouting and turned on high-decibel personal safety alarms. Some dropped the alarms, which are small enough to fit on a keychain, between chairs or onto the ledge below the balcony, forcing troopers to search for them after they emptied the balcony.
Democratic legislators walked to the front of the room, linking arms in a row to block the well, the open area in front of the speaker’s dais. As they stood, the speaker called for the vote to be taken. One Democratic legislator blew a whistle, and another blasted an air horn as they left the room in protest after the vote.
The noise was ear-splitting and effectively shut down any additional discussion on the redistricting legislation.
“I refuse to let my voting rights be taken in silence,” said Memphis activist and policy organizer Amber Sherman after the vote. Sherman is MLK50’s creator-in-residence, contributing policy education videos to the news organization.
“I heard alarms blaring. I heard whistles. I heard people chanting,” she said. “If you’re gonna take our rights away, you’re not gonna be comfortable. You won’t hear a minute of peace while you do it.”
Tuesday, multiple House Democrats posted on social media that Republican Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton had removed them from all their standing committees and subcommittees, apparently in retaliation for their actions last week.
“I would do it again,” Salinas said.
Jaysonne Montoya was one of several Memphians who rode into Nashville on a bus Thursday. She wasn’t able to make it into either of the galleries, but stayed in the rotunda where protesters chanted and sang. “It was deafening and inspiring,” she said.
“Memphis is a community where people stand up for each other,” Montoya said. “There’s an incredible community spirit of people looking out for each other and lifting each other up.”
Across the rotunda, a similar scene played out on the Senate Floor.
Teka Motem, a Memphian who lives in Nashville, watched as Democrats argued against the legislation. There, as in the House, Memphians were supported by their Democratic colleagues from across the state.
When Sen. Charlane Oliver, D-Nashville, was cut off due to exceeding time limits, audience members in the gallery also set off personal safety alarms and began to chant. Oliver stood on her desk and unfurled a sheet that said “No Jim Crow 2.0, stop the TN steal” as the other Senate Democrats linked arms in front of the well.
“I’m a Tennessee girl through and through,” Motem said. “I love this state, and to see this happening by people who say they love and worship the same God as us is frightening. It’s absolutely frightening. That’s not the God I serve.”
Later, Sen. Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis, told MLK50 that the Democrats linked arms at the front of the room so the Republicans had to “face us and see what they were doing.”
“This is something that I never thought that I would witness in my lifetime,” Akbari said. “We never thought we would witness (this) in our lifetimes. So it doesn’t call for normal actions. It doesn’t call for normal courtesies. It calls for standing up, speaking out, and that’s what we did.”
The day prior, Democrats and witnesses spoke in committee meetings about the harms of the legislation, including:
- That the change “silences Black voters of Memphis,” Franklin said,
- That making changes after candidates have qualified for districts that no longer exist will cause difficulties for Election Commissions and “chaos and confusion” for voters and candidates,
- That dividing up Memphis’ congressional district is part of “dismantl(ing) the protections that helped bury the abomination that was Jim Crow,” said Stacey Abrams, voting rights activist and former Georgia State Representative.
Memphians were represented on the witness panels, too, including by Walter Bailey, the civil rights legend and the last living attorney who represented Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Bailey said the redistricting “reminds me of the bullet that Dr. King took in the neck. He took that bullet for voting rights.”
‘A lot more fighting to do’
Activists said they expected the votes to go badly, but it was still worth it to show up, said Sandra Barrett, another Memphian who rode the bus to Nashville. “We have a lot more fighting to do.”
“That’s the legacy I leave for the generations after me,” Barrett said. “I did not sit quietly, and I will never sit quietly.”
Now, activists and legislators say the fight will continue. Already, multiple lawsuits have been filed, and more are anticipated. Democrats are also calling for political organizing across the myriad communities that now share congressional districts with Memphis in an attempt to turn all three districts blue.
“They may have taken our congressional district, but they ain’t gonna take our voice or our vote,” said Sen. London Lamar, D-Memphis. “We are in the New Jim Crow era, but in this new era, we’re going to show you what strength looks like, what courage looks like, what resilience looks like, what it means to have a multicultural body of people still standing together and fighting for what’s right.”
Akbari pointed out that Black Americans have been oppressed before, and that time and again they have overcome.
“We refuse to allow this Republican majority to silence us. We refuse to allow them to silence the Black voices in Memphis and Shelby County,” she said. “They may think they won today, they may think that they won tomorrow, but this is the beginning of another journey.”
Spriggs said activists went into the week knowing it was just “the beginning of the fight.” The redistricting fight also served as a way to get people involved in organizing who hadn’t previously done so. Now, activist groups are working to keep those newcomers involved by raising awareness of local budgets, supporting litigation and making sure that messages about policies resonate with voters.
“If we’re just doing panic alarms during a vote, that is not enough. If Senator Oliver (is) just standing on her desk holding up her sign, that’s not enough,” Spriggs said.
Katherine Burgess is the government accountability reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Contact her at katherine.burgess@mlk50.com
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