WASHINGTON (AP) — 
Thousands of protesters rallied Friday on the National Mall 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, echoes the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 march. The event followed 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.
According to the organizers, the march aims to “confront the systemic rollback of civil rights at this critical moment,” referring to President Donald Trump’s efforts to curb mail-in voting, weaken anti-discrimination protections across the federal government and fundamentally shift what civil rights are.
“We stand on the same ground because the work is not finished,” Sharpton wrote in a letter to supporters. “The right to vote, the very foundation of our power, is being chipped away in statehouse after statehouse. When the vote is weakened, every other right grows fragile with it.”
“Black unemployment is up, Black homeownership is down and Black political representation is under assault with Jim Crow white tactics all throughout the South — challenging times,” Jeffries said, referring to the system of state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the American South until the 1960s.
The march opened with prayer and statements from Interfaith Alliance representatives. They spoke on diversity, equity and inclusion practices, voting rights and systemic racism.
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, features dozens of speakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Sharpton said thousands of civil rights activists from across the southeastern U.S. were traveling to the capital by bus for the rally.