Raleigh, North Carolina - The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II rallied in Raleigh on Thursday to announce plans to challenge North Carolina Republicans' new electoral maps.

"This effort is racist. It's an attack on Black Belt counties," Barber said of the redistricted maps, which were approved by the North Carolina Assembly in a party-line vote this week.

The North Carolina GOP is aiming to redraw the maps with the goal of winning an additional seat in the US House in the upcoming midterms.

In doing so, Republicans have concentrated on the 1st congressional district, which has elected a Black representative since 1992.

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Opponents of the new maps argue that they violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act by preventing Black voters from electing the candidate of their choice.

Barber, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, said he would join a lawsuit challenging the maps. He previously served as president of the NAACP's North Carolina state chapter and pastor of the Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro.

"Black voters in Congressional District 1 make up approximately 40% of the population, and there's a growing Latino population that makes up 7%," Barber said.

"Black communities, Latino communities, and rural, working-class, poor white voters, if the districts are fair, have the power to build a fusion electorate that can overcome the greedy oligarchs' will to control elections in our state."

There were no public hearings on the proposed electoral maps in the affected districts.

"Our fundamental cry is, you cannot draw racist maps and call them fair," Barber said during the rally.

Barber's organization, Repairers of the Breach, is due to hold a Mass Moral Fusion Meeting and public hearing on November 2.

"If they won’t hold public hearings, we will," Barber insisted. "This is our Edmund Pettus Bridge moment... Black, white, and brown together because our democracy is not for sale."