On Monday morning's episode of Huntsville radio WVNN's "The Dale Jackson Show," State Rep. Juandalynn Givan (D-Birmingham) bashed conservatives in the state legislature after last week's passage and signing of two Republican redistricting special election bills.
According to Givan, the effort from conservatives to congressionally redistrict Alabama without racial bias amounts to "plantation politics."
"Had the Anglo-Saxon Americans been doing right in the beginning, we probably never would have gotten here, 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," argued Givan. "That's why we celebrate Juneteenth in just a few weeks."
"So with that being said, I don't trust my colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle to do anything for me," she continued. "My people didn't ask to come here. We were brought here through the shores of Africa through the North Atlantic slave trade. Take you to Jamestown, Virginia."
The lawmaker claimed black Alabamians should have their own congressional districts because of the demographic's population size in the state.
"I know you are white. The bottom line is, America has changed," Givan told show host Dale Jackson. "The state of Alabama has changed. And the Supreme Court in Allen v. Milligan ruled in 2023 that there are nearly 30% African American, black people, in the state of Alabama, and because of that, we are due representation in Congress, period. The case that the Supreme Court ruled on two weeks ago gutted the '65 Voting Rights Act with the pre-clearance issues that had already been chopped up and gutted in six with the holding decision. The bottom line is, it's plantation politics."
The U.S. Supreme Court's recent majority opinion in Louisiana v. Callais effectively restricts racially based gerrymandering, creating the possibility of seven newly redrawn congressional districts in Alabama, solely favoring Republicans. The transition would likely eliminate two racially based districts in Alabama currently occupied by black Democrats, U.S. Reps. Terri Sewell (D-Birmingham) and Shomari Figures (D-Mobile).
"Let me close with this. It's about numbers," she outlined. "Whether we will have 7-0. That means all white, red Republicans. 5-2 with Congresswoman Sewell and Shomari Figures, or we will be 6-1, back to at least having the Congresswoman."
Givan added, "Y'all do the math. This math right here ain't mathing."
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