Following the devastating Callais ruling two weeks ago, activists, civil rights groups, and pro-democracy organizations are organizing and constructing strategies to halt MAGA’s regressive voting rights agenda. The speed at which southern states redrew and passed racist, gerrymandered congressional maps shows us the urgency of the situation. Now is the time to act.
U.S. Representative Terri Sewell (D-AL) joins April to remind us where the civil rights movement came from — and how we desperately need to revitalize it. April and Rep. Sewell highlight highlight how the racists in power have been waiting for this moment to send America back to the Jim Crow era. But, that doesn’t mean that the people are out of power.
To get involved with the All Roads Lead to the South Saturday protests, click here
Terri A. Sewell is in her eighth term representing Alabama’s 7th Congressional District. She is one of the first women elected to Congress from Alabama in her own right and the first Black woman to ever serve in the Alabama Congressional delegation. Congresswoman Sewell sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, is the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Oversight, and sits on the Committee on House Administration where she serves as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Elections.
April Ryan
we have another special moment that we have to address. Basically, the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, and… An attempt to destroy Minorities, and all people’s rights to vote. This is a travesty in 2026. This is not 1940, 1950, 1960, or 1965 when the voting rights happened, when the Voting Rights Act was passed into law. This is 2026. We’re now seeing a rollback on freedoms! Not just democracy, your freedom.
Rep. Terri Sewell
Hard-fought freedoms.
April Ryan
And with that, we have Alabama Congresswoman. Who’s in the belly of this? Selma Montgomery, all of this. Congresswoman Terry Sewell, thank you so much for joining us today.
Rep. Terri Sewell
Oh, thank you, April. You know, this is really, I mean, this is… This is solemn times we’re living in, and it is actually unbelievable that on our collective watch, we see hard-fought progress roll back, whether that is women’s reproductive rights, I thought our grandmothers won that for us. Or civil rights? voting rights? I mean, God forbid, they’re banning books now. Like, I just can’t even imagine that we’re living in 2026. But you know what? We can’t give up. The story of Selma is about anything. It is about ordinary people who dared to make this nation live up to its highest ideals, and they succeeded. And we have to remember that, and take a page from that playbook. We can’t give up.
April Ryan
So people like to, call this something other than what it is. It’s racism. At its core, it’s a pullback, a rollback. or a gutting of your freedoms, the laws are gone. And here’s the piece, when you talked about this hard thought, no, this was… the price was blood and death. Absolutely. The price was blood and death for this. And when you talk about Selma, that racist name bridge, I mean, I remember everybody was trying to change the name to John Hope, you know, and he said, no, no, no. We never should forget. And people seem to be too comfortable in this moment. And you’re going back to that bridge Saturday, and…
Rep. Terri Sewell
That would be…
April Ryan
We’re gonna be there in Selma, on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. That was the turning point, that racist name bridge, and the cresting over that bridge, when the protesters saw the dogs, the hoses, and the billy clubs.
Rep. Terri Sewell
Yeah.
April Ryan
That was… that was the moment.
Rep. Terri Sewell
That was the moment the world saw it, right?
April Ryan
Yes!
Rep. Terri Sewell
It was like the world saw the lack of humanity in America, that ordinary people dressed in their church Sunday bests… do you remember John Lewis with his tie and the…
April Ryan
Yes.
Rep. Terri Sewell
And the book bag, and… oh my god. I think about that day, and I say to myself, I can’t believe that on our watch. we’re going backwards. You know, they gave us the baton, And these people have been… They’ve been plotting. And… and waiting for this moment. And the fact that Alabama had an injunctive order stopping them from redrawing districts until 2030, and the Supreme Court last night, vacated that order.
April Ryan
Yeah.
Rep. Terri Sewell
I paid them license to hold a special election, in August. The governor just announced it, August 11th. And reverting us back to maps that the Supreme Court and the three-judge panel thought were insufficient to give African Americans two seats where they had the opportunity to choose a candidate. And… you know… it’s… it’s un… it’s… it’s… it’s unbelievable in so many ways, but I also know that I know that we can be weary, we can be tired, but we cannot give up.
April Ryan
We cannot get up… give up. And you’re in the cradle of the civil rights movement, and it’s almost… it’s unfortunate we have to give a civil rights lesson and a history lesson in this moment. The problem is people don’t understand that we have freedom that has been taken away. The Supreme Court, by a 6-3 decision, right down party lines. And that’s unfortunate. It’s supposed to be unbiased, right? Supposed to go by the Constitution, and supposed to be about the people. not politics. And then, you know, that’s talk… we’re talking about voting rights, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but also, we’re gonna be… I’m gonna be covering it. We’re gonna be in Alabama. You’re gonna be one of the main headliners in Alabama and Montgomery on Saturday as well. You’re going to… Selma to the bridge, where the march happened, then you’re gonna, go to Montgomery. In the morning.
Rep. Terri Sewell
gather with faith leaders and pray on that bridge. Kneel down on that bridge and pray like Martin Luther King and John Lewis did, you know, the day… turn around Tuesday. after the march. Remember, they came, they gathered, and Dr. King knew that that was not the moment to try to go much further. They prayed, turned around, and went back. and got an injunction to stop the state of Alabama from coming in and beating them with bullet clubs again, but to get a permission to have a peaceful march. You know, I just think that people need to be reminded that… What’s at stake is our right to vote.
April Ryan
Yes.
Rep. Terri Sewell
What’s gonna happen is, if we revert, now that we have to revert back to the 20… 23 map, we will only have one seat. my seat will be a 50% seat, but Shamari’s seat will go back to being 38.9 whatever. But you and I both know, with racial, you know, racial, segregation and voting, I mean, racial polarization in voting…
April Ryan
This is gerrymandering.
Rep. Terri Sewell
Yes.
April Ryan
He’s jealous.
Rep. Terri Sewell
alive and well in Alabama. If you’re black, you’re voting Democrat, and if you’re white, you’re voting Republican. So all of a sudden, this Supreme Court has given license to… for partisan gerrymandering to occur Even if you can show that there’s voter discrimination.
April Ryan
So you have been… you’ve been in that seat in the belly of the cradle, well, what they call, the black belt for the richness of the world. You have been in that seat for a long time. Selma, that is predominantly Black, and then, you know, the situation is, it’s not just you. No. You’ve got people like Benny Thompson of Mississippi.
Rep. Terri Sewell
Yes, yes.
April Ryan
only Black… member of Congress from Mississippi, then you’ve got… and he was also… listen to this, it’s not a coincidence that he was part of the January 6th Select Committee. He was the co-chair, okay?
Rep. Terri Sewell
Benny Thompson was, yep.
April Ryan
Yes. Then you have Congressman, Jim Flyburn from South Carolina. He was the kingmaker for Joe Biden. He’s also been an activist. It’s not… it’s… it’s not a coincidence.
Rep. Terri Sewell
Deep South is going back to white. You do know that, right?
April Ryan
Yes. And the majority of Black people live in the South, guys. The majority of Black people in the South. So… and also, when we go to Montgomery, I can’t help but think about the four little girls. Think about this. Around the time of the 1963 March on Washington, there was a bombing of the 19th Street Church.
Rep. Terri Sewell
church in.
April Ryan
16 streets, I’m sorry.
Rep. Terri Sewell
Absolutely. YouTuber, yeah.
April Ryan
16th Street Church in Alabama. Yeah, I can’t help but think about that. Alabama has racism steeped into the soil. Alabama, and this is a Black congressman representing Black people who have issues that this state that has been considered racist has still yet to deal with. And Alabama’s one of those places. What was it? Voting rights and voting rights? And then you have voter ID, am I correct? We had a problem with voter ID?
Rep. Terri Sewell
Absolutely.
April Ryan
Voter ID.
Rep. Terri Sewell
Well, they restrict the kinds of voter ID. I want to be very clear. You should be able to prove who you are when you pick up your ballot, but it’s about the types of ID. When they say that you can’t show a student ID, but you can show a hunting license. or that you can’t show a utility bill anymore, or show a social security card, which, by the way, our Social Security card is a federal ID. It didn’t have a photo on it, but it’s a federal ID that used to be good enough. And now, all of a sudden, Alabama has restricted the types of IDs that they will allow. And, you know, the SAVE Act that they’re trying to pass up here, now would restrict it even more to birth certificates and passports. And what is a passport? $110? That’s like a modern-day poll tax for so many of my voters who don’t travel abroad. to get.
April Ryan
And let’s drill down on the reason why this would be hurtful. these kind of… this ID that they want. it would be hurtful for minority communities. Why would it be hurtful? Because they also closed down at the time when this was a big…
Rep. Terri Sewell
the bees!
April Ryan
Remember? Yeah, they closed, yeah, they closed down the DMVs in the Black community.
Rep. Terri Sewell
Yeah, so…
April Ryan
they couldn’t get to. So guys, this is not new. This is a systemic effort to oppress, suppress, and quell the Black vote at a time when Republicans want to keep power.
Rep. Terri Sewell
It’s a power grab. Do you know that the Alabama legislature not only met to set up the parameters for a special election for the two African American seats in Alabama, that’s District 2 and District 7, but they also went after the two majority-minority state Senate seats. Now, now, look, April, they have a supermajority. In the state legislature. Taking two more seats is just a power grab. That’s just being greedy. It’s just crazy what we’re living through now. And partisan politics has become a proxy for racism.
April Ryan
Yes, yes. So, so, I understand that you all are gonna try to… and I… this, to me, is… is… it’s a double-edged sword for me. You’re gonna try to push again the John, The John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
Rep. Terri Sewell
John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Now, we’re gonna revise it when we refile it, because we have got to get rid of partisan gerrymandering, make it illegal to do what the Supreme Court is now…
April Ryan
gerrymander, let’s not even deal with partisans.
Rep. Terri Sewell
And partisan, absolutely, gerrymandering.
April Ryan
Yeah, but… and I’m gonna… and hear me. One of the things… well, one of the many things that Joe Biden was tasked with when he was president. was helping to get that Voting Rights Act through.
Rep. Terri Sewell
Yep.
April Ryan
And that’s when he was in charge, he was in power. It didn’t happen. What makes you think now, when these Republicans are playing dastardly games, dirty tricks, that you’re gonna get it through now?
Rep. Terri Sewell
Well, April, we have to vote like we’ve never voted before. We have to vote to take back the House and to take back the Senate. And if we take back the Senate, then we can overcome that filibuster rule if we have a majority that are willing to overturn, you know, their filibuster rule for democracy. Which was something that we weren’t willing to do during Joe Biden’s first two years.
April Ryan
Christian Sinema and Joe Manchin. Christian Sinema and Joe Manchin.
Rep. Terri Sewell
You got it, you know it. You know, because we passed it… I got… I passed… I passed the John Robert Lewis bill now twice. that each time it was stopped in its tracks by the Senate, and their procedural rule. This is not even something that’s on the books. They have to agree to this. This is a process.
April Ryan
two Democrats who wanted to say that they were centrists and purple, but they seemed very red on a lot of issues. You know, anyway, moving on.
Rep. Terri Sewell
Yeah, but I think that people think that this only has to do with congressional seats. Let me just say, what the Supreme Court did in the Calais decision will allow expect elections in the state, in the county, in the city, in the school board, wherever they’re drawing maps, they now only have to show that they had a partisan reason for drawing it, and that will cover up the racism of taking away or deluding the African American and minority vote.
April Ryan
So what people need to understand is, in 1965, when this Voting Rights Act was put into law, there was a thing called preclearance. Yes. State states, racist states, had to get approval from the Justice Department. There’s no approval anymore. They had to get approval from the Justice Department anytime they made changes to voting.
Rep. Terri Sewell
And that was the Shelby versus Holder decision that got rid of that.
April Ryan
Right.
Rep. Terri Sewell
And now Calais is taking away voter dilution, the argument that all you had to show is that the map had a disparate impact on Black voters, not intentional discrimination. Now you gotta get into their psyche and show, and short of them calling us a racial epithet, and we getting it on a video camera or on the tape recorder. How do you show intent?
April Ryan
Right So…
Rep. Terri Sewell
paintings.
April Ryan
The major pieces are cut, are gone, and it makes you wonder, they’ve done this. they are talking quietly, but it’s spilling out about the Civil Rights Act, and that happened before this and the 14th Amendment. And I’mma tell you, when we say it’s about other people, I would not be surprised if they start trying to attack women and vote.
Rep. Terri Sewell
Yes!
April Ryan
You know, women.
Rep. Terri Sewell
They’ve already taken away our reproductive rights.
April Ryan
That’s right, that’s right. That’s right, because I’m… I’m thinking back to the first time Donald Trump won. White women voted with their husband’s pocketbook, what Donald Trump was saying. So, if… things go awry, they may say, because this is not out of the realm of possibility, they may say, hmm, let’s go look at the women, because they’re not voting right. Hmm, we already got the black people, because they’re not voting right, they’re not voting for us. So this… as a man thinketh, so is he. This is happening in real time. So, Congresswoman, tell me… tell me what you think will save this. I know you say vote like your life depends on it.
Rep. Terri Sewell
The voting got us this because you and I both know that Donald Trump got to choose not one justice, not two justices, three justices his first term. Can you imagine if we had voted and had Hillary Clinton as our president? How the tide would have turned? So, we have to remember, voting has consequences. Who repre… representation matters.
April Ryan
It does.
Rep. Terri Sewell
It matters, and it matters on every level. And the thought that they would go back to, in Alabama, in places like Shelby County that are 70% white, we made them, the court made them, divided up into districts, and we got one county commissioner. Now they can go back to at-large elections for all of their seats, and all of them will be Republican and white.
April Ryan
She’s mad, she’s leaning into the camera.
Rep. Terri Sewell
Sorry, I’m just…
April Ryan
No, no, no, you were taking the pearls off! I love it! But no, but… and I’m thinking about this. I remember driving from Selma one year to Montgomery, and all the beautiful cattle ranches. Alabama white farmers have been hurt by Donald Trump.
Rep. Terri Sewell
Oh, yeah. And black farmers. I want you to know the Black Belt is filled with black farmers. You know, if you took that trip from Selma to Montgomery on Highway 80, you passed by a block of land 20 acres that the Gardner family, my mom’s family, had. My grandfather, was so proud of the fact that he sharecropped that land that when the marchers marched, they were able to camp out. Pitched tents on property that he and his ancestors, you know, fought for and paid for with their sweat and blood.
April Ryan
Yeah!
Rep. Terri Sewell
It’s just, it’s unbelievable.
April Ryan
So, are you hearing a turn from… and I’m focusing in, and I love my Black farmers, because I come from an agrarian family as well. Yeah. I’m looking at those, because Alabama’s a red state, I’m looking at those white people who believed in Trump, who are having a hard time.
Rep. Terri Sewell
Fertilizer, the price of fertilizer has shot up, and planting season is now! It’s already passed, actually. And people who didn’t get their fertilizer because of the Strait of Hammus, they can’t even get that. And you’re right. These are people who voted for Trump. And I’m telling you, the number one issue when I’m back home, people are talking about affordability. They can’t afford gas, they can’t afford eggs, they can’t afford childcare, they can’t afford rent. How many of my peers have their children, who already graduated from college, living with them because there is no affordable housing? We are in a crisis, people. A crisis of our own… of our own making, because we voted… the majority of us voted for Trump. Not me, not you. People did! I mean, he is now our president. He has us in a war, a war that he chose to get into, didn’t come to Congress. I just think that the world is crashing around us, and if we don’t think that we don’t need to vote, we need to vote. We gotta vote these people out. We’ve gotta put representatives in who will choose justices that will do right by us, that will be fair.
April Ryan
So, as we wrap this out, are you anticipating a multicultural group of Alabamans? A lot of people are converging, all roads lead to Alabama.
Rep. Terri Sewell
sandwich.
April Ryan
But are you expecting a multicultural group of Alabamans, not just Black folks. Who are you expecting?
Rep. Terri Sewell
I expect a multicultural group of activists. are not just civil rights and voting rights groups and organizations, but I expect to see no kings rally people. I expect to see an alliance of folks. That’s what we need, because this is not about black or white. It’s about right versus wrong. And what we’re asking for is not some representation, not no representation, we’re asking for fair representation. And every American should want to have fair representation. African Americans make up 27-28% of the vote in Alabama. There are 7 seats. And two seats is 28% representation. We don’t need one seat, 14%. We don’t need zero… we need two seats. We’ve earned it, and we are demanding fair representation.
April Ryan
So, at the end of the day, like the Congresswoman said, vote like your life depends on it, but I’m gonna connect the dots for you a little bit, and if she wants to add it. If you go and vote. Against… if you’re mad, and you vote against what’s happening, you can ensure we’ll get back to a new day. I’m not saying who you vote for. But if you are unhappy, and it’s hitting your pocket, my pockets are empty. If it’s hitting your pocket, and your produce at the market, and your gas tank, you’ll go to the polls. You will go to the polls and make your voice heard.
Rep. Terri Sewell
Yes. Yes, and I just want to remind people, I’ve said it over and over again, because it is my inspiration. I remember the last time John Lewis was on that bridge. It was in 2020, and he was on… he was… his body was riddled with cancer. It was a couple of months before he passed, but they gave John that microphone, and his voice was strong. And what did John say? Never give up. Never give in. keep the faith, and let’s keep our eyes on the prize. They would not be trying to take your vote away from you if it wasn’t so important. It is our power. is our power. Let’s exercise it at the ballot box.
April Ryan
I’m gonna combine two things. We the people get in good trouble. Congresswoman Terry Sewell of Alabama, I’m gonna see you Saturday. I’m gonna be reporting again Saturday, meet where, and what time?
Rep. Terri Sewell
We’re meeting in Montgomery, Alabama, at the State Capitol at 1PM, and we’re gonna be with our marching boots on. And we’re gonna do all that we can to convince folks that, especially in Alabama, because, you know, we have our primary Tuesday, so This Saturday, May 16th, I want to see your face in the place.
April Ryan
Thank you, Congresswoman. Thank you, contrarians.
