Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall says efforts by Republicans in the state to pry power from Democrats are partisan political battles, and not motivated by race.

“I don’t believe that there’s been a direct targeted history… in a way that suppresses minority voter participation,” he adds.

He points out that Democrats have redrawn the maps in states that lean to the left politically, such as California, to boost their chances of winning more seats. Republicans, he says, are following the same “race-neutral” principles.

Cedric Coley, a chair of the Alabama Young Republicans, says his state is strongly conservative and deserves representatives who reflect those values. He does not want federal judges interfering in the redistricting process, not even to prioritise black Americans like himself.

“I would rather have family disputes, with the people of Alabama, instead of federal judges stepping in and saying because your past is racist, we must be racist in the future and create racial maps, and box people in racial quotas. I just don’t believe that.”

Coley says people should be judged on merit. “You don’t base it off the content of someone’s skin or where they come from,” he adds. “It’s based on what they’ve earned.”

Many black Alabamians, however, simply don’t buy the argument this is just about party politics.

“It’s a big setback for black people,” Joe Reed, a Montgomery-based civil rights activist and lawyer, tells the BBC. “You can discriminate based on politics, but you can’t discriminate based on race. Well, hell, in Alabama, with the polarised voting we have, everything is race. Everything.”