African Americans and the Vote

The Struggle for African-American Voting Rights

by Goldstone, Lawrence

Book - 2020

A thrilling and incisive examination of the post-Reconstruction era struggle for and suppression of African American voting rights in the United States. F...Show more A thrilling and incisive examination of the post-Reconstruction era struggle for and suppression of African American voting rights in the United States. Following the Civil War, the Reconstruction era raised a new question to those in power in the US: Should African Americans, so many of them former slaves, be granted the right to vote? In a bitter partisan fight over the legislature and Constitution, the answer eventually became yes, though only after two constitutional amendments, two Reconstruction Acts, two Civil Rights Acts, three Enforcement Acts, the impeachment of a president, and an army of occupation. Yet, even that was not enough to ensure that African American voices would be heard, or their lives protected. White supremacists loudly and intentionally prevented black Americans from voting--and they were willing to kill to do so. In this vivid portrait of the systematic suppression of the African American vote for young adults, critically acclaimed author Lawrence Goldstone traces the injustices of the post-Reconstruction era through the eyes of incredible individuals, both heroic and barbaric, and examines the legal cases that made the Supreme Court a partner of white supremacists in the rise of Jim Crow. Though this is a story of America's past, Goldstone brilliantly draws direct links to today's creeping threats to suffrage in this important and, alas, timely book. Show less

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One Person, No Vote

How Not All Voters Are Treated Equally

by Anderson, Carol

Book - 2019

In her New York Times bestseller "White Rage," Carol Anderson laid bare an insidious history of policies that have systematically impeded black ...Show more In her New York Times bestseller "White Rage," Carol Anderson laid bare an insidious history of policies that have systematically impeded black progress in America, from 1865 to our combustible present. With "One Person, No Vote," she chronicles a related history: the rollbacks to African American participation in the vote since the 2013 Supreme Court decision that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Known as the Shelby Ruling, this decision effectively allowed districts with a demonstrated history of racial discrimination to change voting requirements without approval from the Department of Justice. Focusing on the aftermath of Shelby, Anderson follows the astonishing story of government-dictated racial discrimination unfolding before our very eyes as more and more states adopt voter suppression laws. In gripping, enlightening detail she explains how voter suppression works, from photo ID requirements to gerrymandering to poll closures. And with vivid characters, she explores the resistance: the organizing, activism, and court battles to restore the basic right to vote to all Americans as the nation gears up for the 2020 presidential election season. Show less

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Why the Vote Wasn't Enough for Selma

by Forner, Karlyn

Paperback - 2017

In "Why the Vote Wasn't Enough for Selma," Karlyn Forner rewrites the heralded story of Selma to explain why gaining the right to vote did not b...Show more In "Why the Vote Wasn't Enough for Selma," Karlyn Forner rewrites the heralded story of Selma to explain why gaining the right to vote did not bring about economic justice for African Americans in the Alabama Black Belt. Drawing on a rich array of sources, Forner illustrates how voting rights failed to offset decades of systematic disfranchisement and unequal investment in African American communities. Forner contextualizes Selma as a place, not a moment within the civil rights movement--a place where black citizens' fight for full citizenship unfolded alongside an agricultural shift from cotton farming to cattle raising, the implementation of federal divestment policies, and economic globalization. At the end of the twentieth century, Selma's celebrated political legacy looked worlds apart from the dismal economic realities of the region. Forner demonstrates that voting rights are only part of the story in the black freedom struggle and that economic justice is central to achieving full citizenship. Show less

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The Voting Rights War

The NAACP and the Ongoing Struggle for Justice

by Browne-Marshall, Gloria J.

Book - 2016

"The Voting Rights War" tells the story of the courageous struggle to achieve voting equality through more than one hundred years of work by the...Show more "The Voting Rights War" tells the story of the courageous struggle to achieve voting equality through more than one hundred years of work by the NAACP at the Supreme Court. Readers take the journey for voting rights from slavery to the Plessy v. Ferguson case that legalized segregation in 1896 through today's conﬂicts around voter suppression. The NAACP brought important cases to the Supreme Court that challenged obstacles to voting: grandfather clauses, all-White primaries, literacy tests, gerrymandering, vote dilution, felony disenfranchisement, and photo identiﬁcation laws. This book highlights the challenges facing American voters, especially African Americans, the brave work of NAACP members, and the often contentious relationship between the NAACP and the Supreme Court. This book shows the human price paid for the right to vote and the intellectual stamina needed for each legal battle. "The Voting Rights War" follows conﬂicts on the ground and in the courtroom, from post-slavery voting rights and the formation of the NAACP to its ongoing work to gain a basic right guaranteed to every citizen. Whether through litigation, lobbying, or protest, the NAACP continues to play an unprecedented role in the battle for voting equality in America, ﬁghting against prison gerrymandering, racial redistricting, the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, and more. "The Voting Rights War" highlights the NAACP's powerful contribution and legacy. Show less

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Suffrage Reconstructed

Gender, Race, and Voting Rights in the Civil War Era

by Free, Laura

eBook - 2015

The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified on July 9, 1868, identified all legitimate voters as "male." In so doing, it added gender-specific language t...Show more The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified on July 9, 1868, identified all legitimate voters as "male." In so doing, it added gender-specific language to the U.S. Constitution for the first time. "Suffrage Reconstructed" is the first book to consider how and why the amendment's authors made this decision. Vividly detailing congressional floor bickering and activist campaigning, Laura E. Free takes readers into the pre- and postwar fights over precisely who should have the right to vote. Free demonstrates that all men, black and white, were the ultimate victors of these fights, as gender became the single most important marker of voting rights during Reconstruction. Free argues that the Fourteenth Amendment's language was shaped by three key groups: African American activists who used ideas about manhood to claim black men's right to the ballot, postwar congressmen who sought to justify enfranchising southern black men, and women's rights advocates who began to petition Congress for the ballot for the first time as the Amendment was being drafted. To prevent women's inadvertent enfranchisement, and to incorporate formerly disfranchised black men into the voting polity, the Fourteenth Amendment's congressional authors turned to gender to define the new American voter. Faced with this exclusion some woman suffragists, most notably Elizabeth Cady Stanton, turned to rhetorical racism in order to mount a campaign against sex as a determinant of one's capacity to vote. Stanton's actions caused a rift with Frederick Douglass and a schism in the fledgling woman suffrage movement. By integrating gender analysis and political history, "Suffrage Reconstructed" offers a new interpretation of the Civil War-era remaking of American democracy, placing African American activists and women's rights advocates at the heart of nineteenth-century American conversations about public policy, civil rights, and the franchise. Show less

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Voting Rights Under Fire

The Continuing Struggle for People of Color

by Brown, Donathan L.

Book - 2015

With the increasing demands for changes in how we vote, the authors analyze the complications of race tied to these proposed policies through historical a...Show more With the increasing demands for changes in how we vote, the authors analyze the complications of race tied to these proposed policies through historical and contemporary challenges. Why does race play such a discursive role when it comes to the "right to vote"? Lawmakers are continuing to propose changes to voting rights policies that directly impact African Americans and the emerging Latino electorate. Ranging from issues like voter identification laws, accusations of voter fraud, and voting rights for convicted felons, this single-volume provides in-depth analysis regarding the various racial dimensions embedded in cases of public policy. By highlighting the origination and evolution of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, "Voting Rights under Fire: The Continuing Struggle for People of Color" demonstrates the still-prevalent issues around voting and people of color. This work will provide readers an accessible, interdisciplinary book that interconnects past and present issues involving political debates, public policy, and court decisions pertaining to race and voting rights in America. The book highlights the racial dimensions tied to the historical development of voting rights in the United States, illustrates how contemporary voting rights developments are connected to the goal of minimizing or suppressing the African American and Latino vote, presents the way voting rights laws continue to retrogress at the hands of lawmakers, and demonstrates the increasing salience that race plays within public policy, especially pertaining to political power. Show less

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Blackballed

The Black Vote and US Democracy

by Pinckney, Darryl

Book - 2014

"Blackballed" is Darryl Pinckney's meditation on a century and a half of black participation in U.S. electoral politics. In this combination of ...Show more "Blackballed" is Darryl Pinckney's meditation on a century and a half of black participation in U.S. electoral politics. In this combination of memoir, historical narrative, and contemporary political and social analysis, he investigates the struggle for black voting rights from Reconstruction through the civil rights movement, leading up to the election of Barack Obama as president. Interspersed through the historical narrative are Pinckney's own memories of growing up during the civil rights era, his unsure grasp of the events he saw on television or heard discussed, and the reactions of his parents to the social changes that were taking place at the time and later to Obama's election. He concludes with an examination of the current state of electoral politics, the place of blacks in the Democratic coalition, and the ongoing efforts by Republicans to suppress the black vote, with particular attention to the Supreme Court's recent decision to strike down part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and what it may mean for the political influence of black voters in future elections. Show less

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Count Them One by One

Black Mississippians Fighting for the Right to Vote

by Martin, Gordon A.

Paperback - 2014

In 1961, Forrest County, Mississippi, became a focal point of the civil rights movement when the United States Justice Department filed a lawsuit against ...Show more In 1961, Forrest County, Mississippi, became a focal point of the civil rights movement when the United States Justice Department filed a lawsuit against its voting registrar Theron Lynd. While 30 percent of the county's residents were black, only twelve black persons were on its voting rolls. United States v. Lynd was the first trial that resulted in the conviction of a southern registrar for contempt of court. The case served as a model for other challenges to voter discrimination in the South and was an important influence in shaping the Voting Rights Act of 1965. "Count Them One by One" is a comprehensive account of the groundbreaking case written by one of the Justice Department's trial attorneys. Gordon A. Martin, Jr., then a newly minted lawyer, traveled to Hattiesburg from Washington to help shape the federal case against Lynd. He met with and prepared the government's sixteen courageous black witnesses who had been refused registration, found white witnesses, and served as one of the lawyers during the trial. Decades later, Martin returned to Mississippi to find these brave men and women he had never forgotten. He interviewed the still-living witnesses, their children, and friends. Martin intertwines these current reflections with vivid commentary about the case itself. The result is an impassioned, cogent fusion of reportage, oral history, and memoir about a trial that fundamentally reshaped liberty and the South. Show less

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For A Voice and the Vote

My Journey With the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

by Todd, Lisa Anderson

Book - 2014

During the summer of 1964, hundreds of American college students descended on Mississippi to help the state's African American citizens register to vote. ...Show more During the summer of 1964, hundreds of American college students descended on Mississippi to help the state's African American citizens register to vote. Student organizers, volunteers, and community members canvassed black neighborhoods to organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), a group that sought to give a voice to black Mississippians and demonstrate their will to vote in the face of terror and intimidation. In "For a Voice and the Vote," author Lisa Anderson Todd gives a fascinating insider's account of her experience volunteering in Greenville, Mississippi, during Freedom Summer, when she participated in organizing the MFDP. Innovative and integrated, the party provided political education, ran candidates for office, and offered participation in local and statewide meetings for blacks who were denied the vote. For Todd, it was an exciting, dangerous, and life-changing experience. Offering the first full account of the group's five days in Atlantic City, the book draws on primary sources, oral histories, and the author's personal interviews of individuals who were supporters of the MFDP in 1964. Show less

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Keeping Down the Black Vote

Race and the Demobilization of American Voters

by Piven, Frances Fox

Book - 2009

Today in the US, more than 40 years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 demolished bars to voting for African Americans, the effort to prevent black peopl...Show more Today in the US, more than 40 years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 demolished bars to voting for African Americans, the effort to prevent black people--as well as Latinos and the poor in general--from voting is experiencing a resurgence. A myriad of new tactics, some of which adopt the mantle of election reform, has evolved to suppress the vote. In this sharply argued study, three leading experts on party politics and elections demonstrate that the political system is as focused on stopping people from voting as on getting Americans to go to the polls. Show less

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Freedom Is Not Enough

Black Voters, Black Candidates, and American Presidential Politics

by Walters, Ronald W.

Book - 2005

Black voters can make or break a presidential election--look at the close electoral results in 2000 and the difference the disenfranchised black vote in F...Show more Black voters can make or break a presidential election--look at the close electoral results in 2000 and the difference the disenfranchised black vote in Florida alone might have made. Black candidates can influence a presidential election--look at the effect that Jesse Jackson had on the Democratic Party, the platform, and the electorate in 1984 and 1988, and the contributions to the Democratic debates that Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton made in 2004. American presidential politics can't get along without the black vote--witness the controversy over candidates' appearing (or not) at the NAACP convention or the extent to which candidates court (or not) the black vote in a variety of venues. It all goes back to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which formally gave African Americans the right to vote, even if after all these years that right is continuously contested. Ron Walters traces the history of the black vote since 1965, celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2005, and shows why passing a law is not the same as ensuring its enforcement, legitimacy, and opportunity. Show less

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To Shape A New World

Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr

Book - 2018

Martin Luther King, Jr. may be America's most revered political figure as he is commemorated in statues, celebrations, and street names around the world. ...Show more Martin Luther King, Jr. may be America's most revered political figure as he is commemorated in statues, celebrations, and street names around the world. On the fiftieth anniversary of King's assassination, the man and his activism are as close to public consciousness as ever. But despite his stature, the significance of King's writings and political thought remains underappreciated. In "To Shape a New World," Tommie Shelby and Brandon Terry write that the marginalization of King's ideas reflects a romantic, consensus history that renders the civil rights movement inherently conservative--an effort not at radical reform but at "living up to" enduring ideals laid down by the nation's founders. On this view, King marshaled lofty rhetoric to help redeem the ideas of universal (white) heroes but produced little original thought. This failure to engage deeply and honestly with King's writings allows him to be conscripted into political projects he would not endorse, including the pernicious form of "color blindness" that insists, amid glaring race-based injustice, that racism has been overcome. Cornel West, Danielle Allen, Martha Nussbaum, Robert Gooding-Williams, and other authors join Shelby and Terry in careful, critical engagement with King's understudied writings on labor and welfare rights, voting rights, racism, civil disobedience, nonviolence, economic inequality, poverty, love, just-war theory, virtue ethics, political theology, imperialism, nationalism, reparations, and social justice. In King's exciting and learned work, the authors find an array of compelling challenges to some of the most pressing political dilemmas of our present and rethink the legacy of this towering figure. Show less

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Dream and Legacy

Dr. Martin Luther King in the Post-civil Rights Era

Paperback - 2017

This book examines how Martin Luther King's life and work had a profound, if unpredictable, impact on the course of the United States since the civil righ...Show more This book examines how Martin Luther King's life and work had a profound, if unpredictable, impact on the course of the United States since the civil rights era. A global icon of freedom, justice, and equality, King is recognized worldwide as a beacon in the struggles of peoples seeking to eradicate oppression, entrenched poverty, social deprivation, as well as political and economic disfranchisement. While Dr. King's work and ideas have gained broad traction, some powerful people misappropriate the symbol of King, skewing his legacy. With unique, multidisciplinary works by scholars from around the country, this anthology focuses on contemporary social policies and issues in America. Collectively, these pieces explore wide-ranging issues and contemporary social developments through the lens of Dr. King's perceptions, analysis, and prescriptions. Essayists bring a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to social policies and current issues in light of his ideals. They strive to glean new approaches and solutions that comport with Dr. King's vision. Organized into three sections, the book focuses on selected issues in contemporary domestic politics and policy, foreign policy and foreign affairs, and social developments that impinge upon African Americans and Americans in general. Essays shed light on Dr. King's perspective related to crime and justice, the right to vote, the hip hop movement, American foreign policy in the Middle East and Africa, healthcare, and other pressing issues. This book infers what Dr. King's response and actions might be on important and problematic contemporary policy and social issues that have arisen in the post-civil rights era. Show less

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