Alabama’s state Legislature adjourned a special session on Monday after demonstrators entered the State House in Montgomery to protest Republican plans to adopt a gerrymandered map that dilutes the power of Black voters. Currently, an injunction bars Alabama from redrawing its congressional maps before 2030, but following the Supreme Court’s ruling last week gutting the Voting Rights Act, Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall filed an emergency motion asking a court to lift the prohibition. This is Dee Reed, an organizer with Black Voters Matter.

Dee Reed: “It is a strategic attempt to erase the Voting Rights Act, which we know is our strongest protection against disenfranchisement — protections that were not given, protections that were fought for right here in Alabama by the people from Selma, by the people from Greenville, by the people from Birmingham and by the people from Montgomery.”