Anger, confusion as Louisiana Republicans move to erase majority-Black US House district

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana, May 9 (Reuters) - As a child, Leona Tate was one of the "New Orleans Four," the first Black students to desegregate a public school in the deep South, enduring racial slurs and death threats as armed U.S. Marshals escorted them to class.

On Friday, more than six decades later, Tate told Republican state lawmakers that their proposal to ‌dismantle at least one majority-Black congressional district brought back harrowing memories.

"I need you to understand what it feels like to stand here, to have walked through that mob as a child, and to now watch ‌elected officials do the same thing that mob was trying to do – just with better suits and a parliamentary procedure," she told a senate committee hearing at the state capitol in Baton Rouge.

For more than eight hours, Black members of Congress, pastors, activists and voters delivered testimony that ​was at times emotional, angry and deeply personal. Outside the hearing room, protesters cheered them on.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/anger-confusion-louisiana-republicans-move-100804619.html