Supreme Court voting rights ruling fuels a new push to defend Black representation

A crowd of protesters stand outside the South Carolina Capitol building holding signs
A protestor stands outside the South Carolina Statehouse on Thursday, May 14, 2026, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

ATLANTA (AP) — Same fight. New generation.

That’s the mantra of a multiracial group of civil rights leaders and activists organizing opposition to a mostly white conservative alliance dismantling the Voting Rights Act and political districts that allowed Black and other nonwhite voters to choose more of their elected leaders for the last half-century.

“We have to respond as quickly as possible,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in an interview. “The real question,” Johnson told The Associated Press, “is how do we as a country really address the effort to shrink us backwards into a 1950s reality?”