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Georgia House Minority Leader Accuses Republicans of Re-Segregation

February 17, 2012

Georgia state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams appeared on Jennifer Granholm's Current TV show and accused Republicans in the state of attempting to re-segregate the South.

JENNIFER GRANHOLM: Do you think--it’s, in effect, a form of re-segregating the South?

STACEY ABRAMS: I believe there is no "effect" about it. It is absolutely re-segregation. Essentially what the Republican strategy across the South is: Let’s ignore the changing demographics, let’s isolate progressive whites, let’s segregate African Americans, let’s sprinkle Latinos and Asian Americans across the state so they can never actually amass sufficient power to bring together political coalitions.

GRANHOLM: So what can you do about it? It’s a violation of the Voting Rights Act. What are you going to do?

ABRAMS: We attempted to get the Justice Department to weigh in, they declined. We believe that is a result of focusing more attention on voter ID and voter suppression laws. Unfortunately for us, the DOJ didn’t act. What that means is that we have to go to the drawing board. That is to be very aggressive in our strategies, very outspoken in our politics, and make certain that we won’t allow Republicans to draw us into being the minority party in terms of race and in terms of politics.