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WASHINGTON — <\/span>Thousands of protesters are rallying Friday on the National Mall in support of voting rights and racial justice ahead of the midterm elections, following a wave of changes to voting laws and redistricting that civil rights groups have condemned as detrimental to Black Americans.<\/p>\n The 2026 \u201cDefend the Vote\u201d March on Washington, organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III, echoes the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 march<\/a>. The event follows the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s landmark April decision in Louisiana v. Callais<\/a> that reinterpreted key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, allowing Southern states to redraw their congressional maps in a way that erodes equal representation in Black communities.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been doing these marches for years, but this is probably the most important because this is the first year we are marching that the voting rights bill has been nullified by the Supreme Court,\u201d Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network, said in an interview with The Associated Press.<\/p>\n \u201cMarches are designed to grab attention and then go into the trenches and organize around that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The march opened with prayer and statements from Interfaith Alliance representatives. They spoke on diversity, equity and inclusion practices, voting rights and systemic racism.<\/p>\n \u201cCreator of all, let us draw on each other, with love and mercy, and hold each other up as we march, wipe each other\u2019s tears, heal each other\u2019s wounds,\u201d Ambereen Kahn, an Interfaith Alliance representative, said. \u201cMost compassionate, protect our leaders who guide, instill in their hearts the values of our shared humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n This year\u2019s march, which Sharpton’s group is co-hosting with King’s Drum Major Institute, a progressive think tank and community action group, features dozens of speakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. <\/p>\n Sharpton said thousands of civil rights activists from across the southeastern U.S. were traveling to the capital by bus for the rally.<\/p>\n On Thursday, Courtney Pope, 48, was marching across the King Bridge to the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. But on Friday, she and other members of the National Handmaid Army were at the Washington march with plans to travel to New York and New Jersey over the next few days.<\/p>\n For Pope, the rally is about finding community alongside promoting voting rights.<\/p>\n \u201cI know that we\u2019ll only be successful if we band together despite our differences,\u201d Pope said.<\/p>\n Friday’s event harkens back to King Jr.\u2019s historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, when more than 200,000 people gathered at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial. That march, an inflection point in the Civil Rights Movement, came at a fraught moment for the country, when economic headwinds, civil unrest, political division and the Vietnam War bitterly divided Americans.<\/p>\n Sharpton said the Trump administration\u2019s immigration policy for Haitians<\/a> and white South Africans, as well as cuts to social programs like Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act\u2019s health subsidies, are unifying policies for this year’s ideologically diverse march attendees. But the redistricting efforts by Republican-led states<\/a> set to reduce the number of Black lawmakers in Congress loom large over Friday’s march.<\/p>\n \u201cThis march is about people who refuse to be counted out. When the courts and the legislature broke apart District 6, they did not just redraw lines,\u201d Rep. Cleo Fields, D-La., said in a texted statement. \u201cThey told hundreds of thousands of Black families from Baton Rouge up through the Delta that their voice could be taken away at any moment.\u201d <\/p>\n Fields was the central character in the Supreme Court decision that hollowed out the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The court ruled that his district, created just one term ago to permit a second majority-Black district in a state where Blacks make up 33% of the population, was unconstitutional because it relied too heavily on race. <\/p>\n The court has held that maps can be redrawn for partisan reasons.<\/p>\n Louisiana’s legislature rushed to redraw the district after the high court’s decision, reshaping Fields\u2019 district to cluster it around predominantly white communities in the Baton Rouge area and southern Louisiana.<\/p>\n Fields has opted not to seek reelection to Congress<\/a> and instead is pursuing a seat in the state Senate.<\/p>\n \u201cThe people taking part in this historic march are answering back, and history will remember that they did,\u201d Fields said.<\/p>\n Rep. Shomari Figures, an Alabama Democrat whose majority-Black district was targeted<\/a> by the state\u2019s Republican-led redistricting effort, said the original voting rights fight required local movements, national figures, lots of coordination and strategy. He sees this year’s march as a continuation of that legacy. <\/p>\n \u201cMy district includes Montgomery, which was the birthplace of it all. It started with a bus boycott in 1955 and that, ultimately, morphed into a broader struggle for civil rights and led to a more broad Civil Rights Movement,\u201d Figures told the AP.<\/p>\n \u201cIt led to a Civil Rights Act, led to the Fair Housing Act, led obviously to the Voting Rights Act, and the voting rights movement,\u201d Figures added.<\/p>\n Ahead of Friday, organizations participating in the march, including the NAACP, the Lawyers\u2019 Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and Black Voters Matter, filed new claims in federal court in their existing lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting mail-in voting. The Supreme Court cleared a path Monday<\/a> for possible implementation of the order, though it remains unclear how much can be put in place before the midterms. <\/p>\n \u201cWe will not stand idly by while the voices of the people are silenced,\u201d NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement Thursday. \u201cWe must protect every eligible citizen\u2019s right to cast their ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n ____<\/p>\n Associated Press writers Gary Fields in Washington and Kimberly Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n