Beautiful Virgin Islands

Monday, Sep 01, 2025

Georgia's Governor Signed Voting Restrictions Into Law In Front Of A Slave Plantation Picture

Georgia's Governor Signed Voting Restrictions Into Law In Front Of A Slave Plantation Picture

Democrats have described the law as the new Jim Crow. The Republican governor signed it under a painting of a place where Black people were once enslaved.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday signed into law a series of controversial voting restrictions decried by Democrats as "Jim Crow 2.0" — and he did so alongside a group of white men and in front of a painting of a plantation where Black people were once enslaved.

In a Twitter thread Friday, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch pointed out that Kemp signed the bill under the image "of a notorious slave plantation in Wilkes County, GA."

The painting appears to depict a brick house on the Callaway Plantation in Washington, Georgia, which was once a 3,000-acre plantation owned by a family of enslavers and is now open for public tours.

"In 2021, the irony of Kemp signing this bill — that makes it illegal to give water to voters waiting on the sometimes 10-hour lines that state policies create in mostly Black precincts — under the image of a brutal slave plantation is almost too much to bear," Bunch tweeted.

Republicans have said the new law will restore voters' confidence in the state's elections after Donald Trump lied about election fraud when he lost to the state to President Joe Biden.

However, voting rights advocates said the law will suppress turnout among Black and brown voters, who showed up in record numbers to lead Democrats to victory in the presidential and Senate elections.

Among several voting restrictions, the law imposes new ID requirements for absentee ballots, criminalizes giving voters food and water while they stand in lines, hands over control of county election boards to the state’s Republican-led legislature, and limits the use of ballot drop boxes.

Stacey Abrams, a leading voting rights activist and Georgia's former Democratic gubernatorial nominee, described the "voter suppression bill" as "nothing less than Jim Crow 2.0."


"It’s Jim Crow in a suit + tie: cutting off access, adding restrictions, encouraging more 'show me your papers' actions to challenge a citizen's right to vote. Facially neutral but racially targeted," Abrams wrote in a series of tweets criticizing the law.

President Joe Biden said the voting rights restrictions pushed by Republican state legislatures are "sick."

"I’m convinced that we’ll be able to stop this, because it’s the most pernicious thing, this makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle,” Biden said during his first formal press conference on Thursday, before Kemp signed the bill into law.

He reiterated his criticism on Friday after the law was signed.


On Thursday, a video of Democratic lawmaker Rep. Park Cannon being arrested after she knocked on Kemp's door during the bill's signing prompted more outrage from Democrats. After she was released from jail, she tweeted that she was "arrested for fighting voter suppression."

A lawsuit against the new law filed Thursday by voting rights groups in Georgia said, "the Voter Suppression Bill disproportionately impacts Black voters, and interacts with these vestiges of discrimination in Georgia to deny Black voters an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and/or elect a candidate of their choice."

As Bunch, the Philadelphia Inquirer columnist, pointed out, the painting appears to resemble "Brickhouse Road — Callaway PLNT" by Wilkes County artist Olessia Maximenko, which was listed by the Georgia Council of Arts as one of several artworks by local artists that are displayed in the governor's office at the state Capitol.

Maximenko's website also features another $3,400 painting titled "Callaway Road." Her work includes a few other plantation-related paintings, among them ones called "Boone Hall Slave Quarters" and "Cotton Harvesting."

Maximenko did not respond to BuzzFeed News' request for comment.

The painting in question depicts the brick mansion on the Callaway Plantation, which the city's website describes as a "historic restoration project [that] offers a glimpse into the by-gone era of the agricultural South when working plantations speckled the land."

The Callaway family gifted the property to the city in the 1980s. The six historical structures on the property, including the Dally Slave Cabin, are open for public tours.

According to historical accounts, the family owned dozens of slaves. The Callaway name appears several times on a 2003 list of the largest slaveholders as per the 1860 US Census Slave Schedules for Wilkes County, Georgia.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Chinese and Indian Leaders Pursue Amity Amid Global Shifts
European Union Plans for Ukraine Deployment
ECB Warns Against Inflation Complacency
Concerns Over North Cyprus Casino Development
Shipping Companies Look Beyond Chinese Finance
Rural Exodus Fueling European Wildfires
China Hosts Major Security Meeting
Chinese Police Successfully Recover Family's Savings from Livestream Purchases
Germany Marks a Decade Since Migrant Wave with Divisions, Success Stories, and Political Shifts
Liverpool Defeat Arsenal 1–0 with Szoboszlai Free-Kick to Stay Top of Premier League
Prince Harry and King Charles to Meet in First Reunion After 20 Months
Chinese Stock Market Rally Fueled by Domestic Investors
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
Ukrainian Nationalist Politician Andriy Parubiy Assassinated in Lviv
Corporate America Cuts Middle Management as Bosses Take On Triple the Workload
Parents Sue OpenAI After Teen’s Death, Alleging ChatGPT Encouraged Suicide
Amazon Faces Lawsuit Over 'Buy' Label on Digital Streaming Content
Federal Reserve Independence Questioned Amid Trump’s Push to Reshape Central Bank
British Politics Faces Tumultuous Autumn After Summer of Rebellions and Rising Farage Momentum
US Appeals Court Rules Against Most Trump-Era Tariffs
UK Sought Broad Access to Apple Users’ Data, Court Filing Reveals
UK Bank Shares Dive Over Potential Tax on Sector
Germany’s Auto Industry Sheds 51,500 Jobs in First Half of 2025 Amid Deepening Crisis
Bruce Willis Relocated Due to Advanced Dementia
French and Korean Nuclear Majors Clash As EU Launches Foreign Subsidy Probe
EU Stands Firm on Digital Rules as Trump Warns of Retaliation
Getting Ready for the 3rd Time in Its History, Germany Approves Voluntary Military Service for Teenagers
Argentine President Javier Milei Evacuated After Stones Thrown During Campaign Event
Denmark Confronts U.S. Diplomat Over Covert Trump-Linked Influence in Greenland
Starmer Should Back Away from ECHR, Says Jack Straw
Trump Demands RICO Charges Against George Soros and Son for Funding Violent Protests
Taylor Swift Announces Engagement to NFL Star Travis Kelce
France May Need IMF Bailout, Warns Finance Minister
Chinese AI Chipmaker Cambricon Posts Record Profit as Beijing Pushes Pivot from Nvidia
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
Ukraine Finally Allows Young Men Aged Eighteen to Twenty-Two to Leave the Country
The Porn Remains, Privacy Disappears: How Britain Broke the Internet in Ten Days
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Welcome to The Definition of Insanity: Germany Edition
Just a reminder, this is Michael Jackson's daughter, Paris.
Spotify’s Strange Move: The Feature Nobody Asked For – Returns
Manhunt in Australia: Armed Anti-Government Suspect Kills Police Officers Sent to Arrest Him
China Launches World’s Most Powerful Neutrino Detector
How Beijing-Linked Networks Shape Elections in New York City
Ukrainian Refugee Iryna Zarutska Fled War To US, Stabbed To Death
Elon Musk Sues Apple and OpenAI Over Alleged App Store Monopoly
2 Australian Police Shot Dead In Encounter In Rural Victoria State
Vietnam Evacuates Hundreds of Thousands as Typhoon Kajiki Strikes; China’s Sanya Shuts Down
UK Government Delays Decision on China’s Proposed London Embassy Amid Concerns Over Redacted Plans
A 150-Year Tradition to Be Abolished? Uproar Over the Popular Central Park Attraction
×