by MATT BROWN Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands of protesters are expected on the National Mall on Friday for a rally 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.
The 2026 “Defend the Vote” March on Washington, organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III, will echo the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 march. The event follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark April decision in Louisiana v. Callais 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.
“We’ve 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,” Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
“Marches are designed to grab attention and then go into the trenches and organize around that,” he said.
This year’s march, which Sharpton’s group is co-hosting with King’s Drum Major Institute, a progressive think tank and community action group, will feature dozens of speakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Thousands of civil rights activists from across the southeastern U.S. are traveling to the capital by bus for the rally, Sharpton said.
Event echoes iconic rally at Lincoln Memorial
Associated Press writers Gary Fields in Washington and Kimberly Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed.
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