Black women denounce high court’s decision to allow North Carolina to stall redistricting

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jan. 19, 2018
Contact: Loretta Kane (917-410-7242 or loretta@caminopr.com)

Statement from In Our Own Voice
WASHINGTON – Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a request from North Carolina’s Republican legislative leaders to stay a lower court’s ruling that called for the redrawing of congressional district maps. Marcela Howell, founder and executive director of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda, issued the following statement in response:

“In this new Jim Crow era, Black voters are being systematically robbed of our votes by our own government. Gerrymandering, unfair voter ID laws and intimidation at the polls, are among the tactics being used to prevent voters of color – U.S. citizens – from casting our votes. The U.S. Supreme Court answered the call of those who gerrymandered North Carolina districts to deny people of color fair representation delaying the drawing of new, fair voting district maps. The justices should know that justice delayed is justice denied. It is abhorrent to stall the process to address a truly illegal and unconstitutional act perpetrated against voters.

“The wholesale disenfranchisement of voters threatens our democracy. Politicians – in state houses across the country, both houses of Congress and the White House – are pulling out all the stops to prevent people of color – especially Black people – from exercising our right to vote. We didn’t march and die fighting for our right to vote only to have that right denied us now. We will not accept this new Jim Crow era.

“We call on voters across the country to unite in resistance to this assault on voting rights by holding their elected representatives accountable and, most of all, by voting.”

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In Our Own Voice: National Black Women;s Reproductive Justice Agenda is a national reproductive justice organization focused on lifting up the voices of Black women at the national and regional levels in our ongoing policy fight to secure reproductive justice for all women and girls. Our seven strategic partners include: Black Women for Wellness, Black Women’s Health Imperative, New Voices for Reproductive Justice, SisterLove, Inc. SisterReach, SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW, Althea Center and Women With A Vision.