U.S. Sen. Cory Booker said his invitation to appear at Birmingham’s Boutwell Auditorium on Monday night came before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act.

With that action, the tenor of Booker’s town hall conversation with U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell changed from simply rallying to support Democratic candidates in this year’s election to bolstering support for the fight against moves to reverse the gains made generations ago.

“Six people did so much to undermine the progress that was made by the blood, sweat and tears of so many Alabamians who were Black and white, so many people who joined hands and said, ‘We in America must make real on the promise of our country and the principles we stand for,’” said Booker, a Democrat representing New Jersey and a previous presidential candidate. “I don’t care what your party is, what your ethnic background is. You know that democracy means representation, and if your voice is erased or diluted, you know that that is an anti-democratic force, we believe.”

The Supreme Court said in a ruling last week that Louisiana relied too heavily on race when it redrew congressional districts to create a second Black-majority House district. Republicans in several states have already moved to try to redraw congressional maps in time to influence this year’s election.

The Alabama Legislature began meeting in special session Monday to consider redrawing congressional districts and state Senate districts, though a federal judge would have to release the state from a court order that imposed the current maps before the state could make those changes. Some state officials in the past few days have called for drawing all of the districts so that they lean Republican.

Booker, who played football in the Pac-10, said Monday night that people in Alabama fought to put politics on a level playing field.

“What’s happened now in the Supreme Court is an upending of that level playing field, an upending of that fairness and setting us back,” he said. “There are a lot of great angels looking down, great Alabamians of old that are looking down right now and are weeping at what happened. But weeping may endure through the night. The joy that will come in the morning is, I believe, that this is going to trigger an extraordinary activism amongst Alabamians, amongst people all over this nation, to say we are not a left or right nation. We are a right nation when it comes to fairness and justice. Together, we’re going to overcome yet another historically bad Supreme Court decision.”

Speaking during a press conference prior to the town hall, Sewell, a Democrat representing Alabama’s 7th congressional district, which includes Birmingham, said Alabama is living in very perilous times.

“We’re not going back. We’re not going back,” Sewell said. “I believe that the decision … will pave the way for the largest reduction in Black representation in our history. What the court did makes it easier for bad actors, bad state actors, to silence the voices of Black voters and make it harder to challenge those discriminations. Courts have given permission to use partisan gerrymandering as a wholesale excuse to deny minority and Black voters.

“The message is simple,” she continued. “We will not step back. We will fight back. We will do everything in our power to make sure that we are laying bare the injustice of going from a 5-2 congressional delegation to a 7-0 delegation. African-Americans make up more than 27% of the Black vote in Alabama and we have seven congressional seats. Fairness dictates that we have two seats, not one and not zero. I think it’s really important that we highlight that today.”

Former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, now a candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor of Alabama, said the Alabama Legislature could not get to Montgomery quick enough to try to deny voters the right and access to vote in Alabama.

“There’s a special session right now,” Jones said. “It’s going to cost Alabama taxpayers $400,000 or more for nothing (except) to deny people the right to have a voice in Congress or a voice in the state House or state Senate. They’re not calling a special session to deal with electricity prices. They’re not calling a special session to deal with health care and expanding Medicaid, or education, or jobs or workforce development. But let there be a Supreme Court decision that lets them grab hold of even more power than they have and they run down there at your expense to try to take it. That’s what we’re facing.

“I want to make sure everyone that’s watching this understands this is more than about a Supreme Court decision rolling back rights,” he continued. “This is about people in public office that are supposed to be public servants, that are supposed to be doing public good for all the public and not just a select few. We have seen that playbook before in Alabama. We have seen it back in the 1960s. This is not something that we need to go back to. This is not something that the people of Alabama deserve, and this is not something we’re going to stand for.”

Mayor Randall Woodfin said he stands on the shoulders of leaders such as the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth who understood the fights Alabama’s minorities needed to take on.

“You can’t be afraid of what’s going to happen politically. You can’t be afraid what’s going to happen personally,” the mayor said. “I charge anyone who is under the sound of my voice who believes in fair representation, who believes in justice and who believes laws should be created in a way that all Alabamians can win.

“We are in the fight of our lifetime,” Woodfin continued. “I expect everyone to get off the sidelines, get off social media and join in, using your voice, whatever platform you have, and your feet and your voice, to make sure we call out any form of injustice that’s taking place right now, particularly as it relates to this form of political gerrymandering that will dilute minority and Black voices in Congress and in other spaces.”

As the town hall concluded, Booker recalled the worst storm in the history of Newark, New Jersey, and a man standing in the storm and waving a light so others would not get hurt.

“We are in a storm right now, my friends,” he said. “The question is, where will you stand? Will you hold up your light? If we do that – your light and my light and her (Sewell’s) light – I promise you that we will demand the new day and bring on the sun.”

Monday’s town hall was organized by Blueprint Alabama, a political action committee formed in 2025. Its goal is to strengthen the Democratic Party in the state and eventually make Alabama more competitive for Democrats.