Tennessee redistricting debate marked by fiery oratory about Black struggles for voting rights

During separate hours-long debates on redistricting in the Tennessee House and Senate on Thursday, Democrats delivered fiery oratory, often invoking the decades-long struggles of Black Tennesseans to secure voting rights, in opposing a Republican plan to divide Tennessee’s only majority-Democratic U.S. House district encompassing Memphis into three.

Republicans, who hold a supermajority voting power that guaranteed passage of the redistricting plan, largely remained silent with the exception of the measure’s sponsors, who were tasked with …