Democratic Georgia State Rep. Park Cannon told MSNBC’s Joy Reid Thursday that she wasn’t surprised she was arrested outside the office of Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp.

Cannon was forcibly removed from the state capitol on March 25, after she repeatedly knocked on the door of Kemp’s office as the governor signed a bill that has been widely criticized for placing restrictive limits on voting access.

“Are you surprised,” Reid asked, “that the state would pursue a prosecution of a Black woman that police would arrest and detain a Black woman, given that that’s the optic now, that a Black woman is being punished for trying to witness the signing of a law that restricts Black voters?”

“I am not at all surprised that this is what is happening in 2021 in America. This is America,” Cannon answered. “And we have to remain steadfast in protecting the right to vote.”

“The only thing etched in my mind are two things,” Cannon later said. “Why were they arresting me? Why were they doing that? And the photo of six all white men under a photo of a plantation taking away Black and brown voters’ rights as well as all voters’ rights. This is America. And we have to keep on knocking.”

Cannon’s attorney Gerald Griggs told Reid that Cannon has been charged with felony obstruction and disrupting the general assembly, which carry a combined potential penalty of eight years in prison.

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