All Roads Lead to the South: Why I’m Calling You to Montgomery on Saturday

LaTosha Brown of Black Voters Matter is issuing a nationwide call to action for anyone who cares about voting rights and preserving our democracy.

On Saturday, I’ll be standing on the grounds of the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery. I won’t be standing alone.

Over 227 national, state, and local organizations have signed on. More than 100 buses are rolling in from across the South and the nation. What started as 15 satellite events has grown to over 50, stretching from the Deep South all the way to Alaska. The South has friends everywhere. And on Saturday, those friends are showing up.

All of this came together authentically and organically in less than a week. No corporate machinery. No top-down rollout. Just people moving when the people needed to move. This is what democracy looks like.

This is a clearing call. If you care about voting rights, we need you here. And we need you now.

The Urgency Is Right Now

In the last 10 days, we have watched a coordinated assault on Black voting power unfold at a speed that should alarm every person who claims to believe in democracy. Look at Tennessee. Look at Virginia. Look at Alabama. Look at Louisiana. This is not a coincidence. This is a coordinated campaign moving in lockstep across the southern states to unravel, undermine and erase the political power our people built with our bodies, our blood, and our ballots.

The Supreme Court opened the door, and those who would destroy this democracy walked right through it. The Voting Rights Act, the law our elders marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to win, has been gutted. We will fight to restore it. We are supporting the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. We need greater protections and complete electoral reform. And in the meantime, we use the power already in our hands. We vote. We organize. We build.

The most egregious part of the court’s ruling is what it ignores. Black voters and Black elected officials have not only served Black constituents. We have made this country better. We have shaped, advocated for and improved nearly every progressive policy this nation has ever won, bringing our intellect, creativity and innovation to a country that has too often refused to use ours. Everything we have fought for opened space and expanded opportunity for all Americans, not just ourselves. There is no pathway to a progressive agenda without the Black voting base, because we are the base. When they come for our representation, they are coming for every progressive cause that depends on our votes to win.

From Selma to Montgomery and Beyond

We are being called into the next phase of our fight. The first phase took us from Selma to Montgomery. The voting rights movement of the 1960s walked that road, paid for it in blood and won the Voting Rights Act. That law was a floor. It was never the ceiling. Now we meet again in Montgomery, but this time the work is to go from Montgomery and beyond. We are not here to relive the last era of this struggle. We are here to launch the next one.

Cynicism Is Not a Strategy

There are people, sitting at safe distances, saying that voting doesn’t matter, that protests don’t work, that gathering is pointless. To them I say this: Cynicism is not a strategy.

Cynics feed off a steady diet of negativity and apathy. But that is not what sustains a people. What sustains a people is a North Star, hope and a belief about how we move forward. Cynicism cannot offer any of that, because cynicism lacks creativity. It cannot see the power of gathering. It cannot see what is possible inside this moment. Cynics can only see problems. They cannot see that pain itself can birth possibility, and that the problem is reminding us of the most important truth: we are the solution.

There is a story in the Bible. When Moses stood before God overwhelmed by the size of the task in front of him, God did not give him an army. God asked him a question: What is in your hand? And then God told him to use it.

That is the word for this moment. We have to use what is in our hand. Our voice. Our vote. Our capacity to gather, to organize, to align around a cause and move together.

And remember this: Our foreparents did not have what we have. The leaders of the voting rights movement faced a racist Supreme Court, too. They had no federal protections. They had no laws that shielded them. They had less than we have, and they made a way out of no way. If they could do that with so little, we can do this with so much more. We have more resources, more organizations, more people power, more diversity. That is our power. Our power is in our people. Our power is in our belief that we deserve something better. Our power is in our righteous indignation, channeled not into despair but into organizing.

This Is Not a Protest

Let me be clear about what we are doing on Saturday. This is not a protest. This is a calling together. This is an altar call. This is a moment for us to turn inward and recenter in what our power actually is.

Our power was never granted to us by the Constitution or by legislation written by white supremacists. Our true power is in the people. It is in our personhood. It is in our God-given right to make choices for ourselves as human beings. That is what they cannot take, because they did not give it.

Understand the difference between us and them. There are those who seek to hurt, to harm, to destroy. They tear down. They dismantle. They erase. That is all they know, because they cannot build. They lack creativity. They lack imagination. And they know their time is short. Then there are the rest of us. The visionaries. The dreamers. The builders. The architects of what comes next. We are the architects of an America that is free, equitable, and inclusive of all. They destroy. We build. Those are two different callings, and we have chosen ours.

When we gather on Saturday, we are not asking permission. We are remembering who we are.

The Gathering of Waters

This is the gathering of waters. It is the gathering of the people who will build the beloved community. The dreamers, the believers, the ones committed to creating a nation that is truly of, for, and by the people. A nation that finally understands that its most important resource is its people.

This movement does not belong to any one organization. It is nonpartisan. It is organized by people who care about our democracy, about Black political power, and about creating an America that is free, equitable, and inclusive of all.

Hate is not rising in this country; it has always been here. Hate is just revealing itself. The same hate that fueled slavery. The same hate that drove Jim Crow. The same hate that massacred our Indigenous brothers and sisters. The same hate that placed our Asian brothers and sisters in concentration camps. The same hate that allows children to go hungry by cutting SNAP while it redirects our money to build a gold plated dining room for billionaires. It is the same hate that has powered every injustice, every act of racism and every effort to silence us. That hate is showing its face again, and it is showing it in the open. This is our prime opportunity to reveal something, too. The depth of our love. Love for each other. Love for humanity. Love that protects each other. Love that builds something better. They are revealing their hate. We are revealing our love. And love is a stronger architecture.

This Moment Is Birthing Something New

This moment is painful. I will not pretend otherwise. But this moment is also forcing us to move. It is forcing us beyond the boundaries of our organizations. It is forcing those of us who love justice and long for the beloved community out of our silos and out of our complacency. And that is how new things get born.

Difficult moments in this country have always birthed something new. Our people have always taken what was given to us to create something new with utility and purpose. We have always taken the dark moments and become the light. We are the light bearers. We hold the light up so the nation can see itself clearly: see who is leading us forward and see who is stuck in the past. But most importantly, see who is being exposed. The ones who do not represent the will and the interest of the people will be revealed in this era. And the ones who are leading us into the next phase of this nation, those are our light bearers too. We are architects and we are light bearers. We will lead the way, and we will build something new and more durable and beautiful on this journey.

What’s Happening Saturday

9 a.m. to 11 a.m., Selma, Alabama

Prayer march from Tabernacle Baptist Church across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

1 p.m. to 5 p.m., Alabama State Capitol, Montgomery

National Voting Rights Rally. A program of the people, for the people, and by the people.

50+ Satellite Events Nationwide

From the Deep South to Alaska, communities are rising up at the same time so the whole nation hears one voice.

Montgomery is our anchor, not our endpoint. It is the beginning of Freedom Summer.

The Ask

If you care, we need you. Meet us in Selma. Meet us in Montgomery. Meet us at a satellite near you. Bring 10 people. Bring your children. Bring your courage.

Those who want to silence us are counting on our exhaustion. They have miscalculated. Organizing is our strength. It lives in us.

All roads lead to the South. Come meet us there.

Visit allroadsleadtothesouth.com to find your bus or your role.