Thousands of people descended on Montgomery, Alabama, on Saturday for the All Roads Lead to the South rally, a major mobilisation in defence of Black political representation following a recent US Supreme Court ruling that has significantly weakened federal voting rights protections. Participants arrived by bus, car and plane from across the country, gathering outside the Alabama state capitol — the same site where, in 1965, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "How Long, Not Long" speech at the conclusion of the historic Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights marches.

The rally was prompted by the Supreme Court's decision in Louisiana v Callais, which effectively gutted key provisions of the Voting Rights Act — a landmark 1965 law that had prohibited discriminatory voting practices and, for decades, required certain states with histories of racial discrimination to obtain federal approval before changing their voting laws. That preclearance requirement was already weakened by a 2013 ruling and narrowed further over subsequent years. The latest decision has cleared the way for Republican-led states including Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia to redraw congressional maps in ways that critics say dilute Black political power. In Alabama, a federal court had in 2023 redrawn the state's 2nd Congressional District after ruling it intentionally diminished the voting influence of Black residents, who make up roughly 27% of the state's population. The Supreme Court has now allowed a different map to proceed, with special primaries planned for August 11.

Speakers at the rally — including US Senators Cory Booker and Raphael Warnock, Representatives Terri Sewell, Shomari Figures and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and state and local officials — framed the moment as a generational test. "If we in our generation do not now do our duty, we will lose the gains and the rights and the liberties that our ancestors afforded us," said Booker, who called Montgomery "sacred soil." Tennessee state senator Charlane Oliver, who last week stood on her desk in protest of her state's redistricting, drew loud cheers: "They may draw some racist maps, but we are the south. This is our south."

The day began in Selma, where a prayer service was held at the historic Tabernacle Baptist Church, followed by a silent walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge — the site of the 1965 "Bloody Sunday" attack, when law enforcement officers violently clashed with peaceful marchers, galvanising national support for the Voting Rights Act. For many attendees, the stakes were deeply personal. Kirk Carrington, 75, who was a teenager during Bloody Sunday, called the rollback of protections "appalling." Montgomery resident Carole Burton invoked family members who marched, boycotted and faced violence in the 1960s. "We didn't do all that for this," she said.

Organisers stressed that the rally was a beginning, not an end, with more than 50 satellite events held simultaneously across the United States. Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, a Republican, defended the redistricting effort, arguing the new maps restore a seat the Republican Party had previously held before federal courts intervened. But lead plaintiff Evan Milligan urged demonstrators to accept the changed legal landscape while refusing to treat it as permanent. "We don't have to accept that this will be the reality for the next 10 years or two years or forever," he said. Spontaneous chants of "vote, vote, vote" and "we won't go back" echoed throughout the day, underscoring organisers' message that electoral participation remains the central tool in the fight ahead.