ORLANDO, Fla. — A grassroots nonprofit took its anti-gerrymandering tour to the MetroWest community Wednesday night hoping to increase the Black voting power in the area.
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Equal Ground, which was launched in 2019, is waiting for its lawsuit challenging Florida’s new congressional district map to be heard in court. Until then, they’re taking their message on the road.
Wednesday night’s session was part of an eight-stop tour focusing on Black communities whose political power has been diminished by the new lines, organizers said, after two majority-Black districts were cut out despite a growing population.
“We thought it was important to bring and shed light on the fact that we are reliving history all over again,” founder and Orlando native Jasmine Burney-Clark said. “That the state legislature and the governor have decided to go against the will of the people.”
The session taught roughly two dozen voters about the history of gerrymandering and how to effectively organize their neighborhoods. Long-term, Equal Ground’s goal is to ensure that Black representation is not threatened by the whims of one political party or another.
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“When you take away representation in a district, you take away projects, you take away their voice in Congress… that could have effects for generations to come,” Burney-Clark said. “That is what it means to build political power… Let’s fight back to get the representation that they deserve back in these communities.”
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