Give Us the Ballot The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America

by Berman, Ari

• ISBN13: 9781250094728
• ISBN10: 1250094720
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2016-08-02
• Publisher: Picador

Summary

Named a Notable Book of the Year by
The New York Times Book Review and The Washington Post

Named a Best Book of the Year by
NPR, The Boston Globe, and Kirkus Reviews (Best Nonfiction)

Countless books have been written about the civil rights movement, but far less attention has been paid to what happened after the dramatic passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and the turbulent forces it unleashed. In this groundbreaking narrative history, Ari Berman charts both the transformation of American democracy under the VRA and the counterrevolution that has sought to limit it from the moment the act was signed into law. The VRA is widely regarded as the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement, and yet—more than fifty years later—the battles over race, representation, and political power continue, as lawmakers devise new strategies to keep minorities out of the voting booth, while the Supreme Court has declared a key part of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional.

Through meticulous research, in-depth interviews, and incisive on-the-ground reporting, Give Us the Ballot offers the first comprehensive history of its kind, and provides new insight into one of the most vital political and civil rights issues of our time.

Author Biography

Ari Berman is a political correspondent for The Nation and an investigative journalism Fellow at the Nation Institute. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times and Rolling Stone, and he is a frequent commentator on MSNBC and NPR. His first book, Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics, was published in 2010. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Contents

Prologue
1. The Second Emancipation
2. The Second Reconstruction
3. The Southern Strategy
4. Hands That Pick Cotton
5. The Counterrevolution
6. Challenging the Consensus
7. The Realignment
8. The Counterrevolution (II)
9. Old Poison, New Bottles
10. After Shelby