MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow hosted a live town hall in Flint, Michigan, Wednesday to examine the ongoing crisis over lead poisoning in the drinking water. The contamination crisis began after Flint’s unelected emergency manager appointed by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder switched the source of the city’s drinking water to the corrosive Flint River in a bid to save money. At the town hall, Reverend Charles Williams, the president of National Action Network’s Michigan chapter, spoke out against the state’s emergency management laws and called attention to the fact that Governor Snyder has used state-imposed emergency management almost exclusively against majority black cities.

Rev. Charles Williams: “Took over every black city in Michigan. Took over every black city in Michigan—Flint, Detroit, Ecorse, Detroit Public Schools, Benton Harbor—and has failed at every city he has taken over. ’I’m putting in emergency management to keep Detroit from going bankrupt.’ What happened? Detroit goes bankrupt. I mean, it’s ludicrous, and anybody who fails at the rate that Governor Snyder has failed, I would have been fired a long time ago. All I got to say is Governor Snyder’s got to go.”