Protesters marched up to Tennessee’s Capitol on Tuesday as a special legislative session began that could carve up a majority-Black district in Memphis.
Republican Gov. Bill Lee called Tennessee lawmakers into a special session to consider a plan urged by Trump that could break up the state’s lone Democratic-held U.S. House district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis. Republican lawmakers said little about the plan Tuesday.
As the Senate began work, shouts of “shame, shame, shame” could be heard inside the chamber from protesters gathered in the hallways.
At a rally earlier Tuesday, state Rep. Justin Pearson of Memphis, who is running for Congress, denounced the Republican plan as a “racist redistricting.”
U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, who is white, said the Memphis-based district he represents predates the Voting Rights Act.
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