Download or read book Give Us the Ballot written by Ari Berman and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, Nonfiction A New York Times Notable Book of 2015 A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2015 A Boston Globe Best Book of 2015 A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2015 An NPR Best Book of 2015 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 (VRA) in 1965 and the turbulent forces it unleashed. Give Us the Ballot tells this story for the first time. 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 voting rights, from 1965 to the present day. The act enfranchised millions of Americans and is widely regarded as the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. And yet, fifty years later, we are still fighting heated battles over race, representation, and political power, with lawmakers devising new strategies to keep minorities out of the voting booth and with the Supreme Court declaring a key part of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. Berman brings the struggle over voting rights to life through meticulous archival research, in-depth interviews with major figures in the debate, and incisive on-the-ground reporting. In vivid prose, he takes the reader from the demonstrations of the civil rights era to the halls of Congress to the chambers of the Supreme Court. At this important moment in history, Give Us the Ballot provides new insight into one of the most vital political and civil rights issues of our time.
Download or read book Quiet Revolution in the South written by Chandler Davidson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1994-06-16 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work is the first systematic attempt to measure the impact of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, commonly regarded as the most effective civil rights legislation of the century. Marshaling a wealth of detailed evidence, the contributors to this volume show how blacks and Mexican Americans in the South, along with the Justice Department, have used the act and the U.S. Constitution to overcome the resistance of white officials to minority mobilization. The book tells the story of the black struggle for equal political participation in eight core southern states from the end of the Civil War to the 1980s--with special emphasis on the period since 1965. The contributors use a variety of quantitative methods to show how the act dramatically increased black registration and black and Mexican-American office holding. They also explain modern voting rights law as it pertains to minority citizens, discussing important legal cases and giving numerous examples of how the law is applied. Destined to become a standard source of information on the history of the Voting Rights Act, Quiet Revolution in the South has implications for the controversies that are sure to continue over the direction in which the voting rights of American ethnic minorities have evolved since the 1960s.
Download or read book Bending Toward Justice written by Gary May and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Fifteenth Amendment of 1870 granted African Americans the right to vote, it seemed as if a new era of political equality was at hand. Before long, however, white segregationists across the South counterattacked, driving their black countrymen from the polls through a combination of sheer terror and insidious devices such as complex literacy tests and expensive poll taxes. Most African Americans would remain voiceless for nearly a century more, citizens in name only until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act secured their access to the ballot. In Bending Toward Justice, celebrated historian Gary May describes how black voters overcame centuries of bigotry to secure and preserve one of their most important rights as American citizens. The struggle that culminated in the passage of the Voting Rights Act was long and torturous, and only succeeded because of the courageous work of local freedom fighters and national civil rights leaders -- as well as, ironically, the opposition of Southern segregationists and law enforcement officials, who won public sympathy for the voting rights movement by brutally attacking peaceful demonstrators. But while the Voting Rights Act represented an unqualified victory over such forces of hate, May explains that its achievements remain in jeopardy. Many argue that the 2008 election of President Barack Obama rendered the act obsolete, yet recent years have seen renewed efforts to curb voting rights and deny minorities the act's hard-won protections. Legal challenges to key sections of the act may soon lead the Supreme Court to declare those protections unconstitutional. A vivid, fast-paced history of this landmark piece of civil rights legislation, Bending Toward Justice offers a dramatic, timely account of the struggle that finally won African Americans the ballot -- although, as May shows, the fight for voting rights is by no means over.
Download or read book The Voting Rights Act of 1965 written by Kevin J. Coleman and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-01-02 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Voting Rights Act (VRA) was successfully challenged in a June 2013 case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder. The suit challenged the constitutionality of Sections 4 and 5 of the VRA, under which certain jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting-mostly in the South-were required to "pre-clear" changes to the election process with the Justice Department (the U.S. Attorney General) or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The preclearance provision (Section 5) was based on a formula (Section 4) that considered voting practices and patterns in 1964, 1968, or 1972. At issue in Shelby County was whether Congress exceeded its constitutional authority when it reauthorized the VRA in 2006-with the existing formula-thereby infringing on the rights of the states. In its ruling, the Court struck down Section 4 as outdated and not "grounded in current conditions." As a consequence, Section 5 is intact, but inoperable, unless or until Congress prescribes a new Section 4 formula.
Download or read book The Voting Rights Act of 1965 written by United States Commission on Civil Rights and published by . This book was released on 1965 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Fight to Vote written by Michael Waldman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-01-18 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On cover, the word "right" has an x drawn over the letter "r" with the letter "f" above it.
Download or read book The Turnout Gap written by Bernard L. Fraga and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-06 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Persistent racial/ethnic gaps in voter turnout produce elections that are increasingly unrepresentative of the wishes of all Americans.
Download or read book The Law of Democracy written by Samuel Issacharoff and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 1286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Law of Democracy offers a systematic exploration of the legal construction of American democracy. The book brings together a cluster of issues in law regulating the design of democratic institutions, and the book employs a variety of methods - historical, comparative, theoretical, doctrinal - to explore foundational questions in the theory and practice of democracy. Covered issues include the historical development of the individual right to vote; current struggles over racial gerrymandering; the relationship of the state to political parties; the constitutional and policy issues surrounding campaign-finance reform; and the tension between majority rule and fair representation of minorities in democratic bodies.
Download or read book Ballot Blocked written by Jesse Hessler Rhodes and published by Stanford Studies in Law and Po. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Voting rights are a perennial topic in American politics. Recent elections and the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which struck down key enforcement provisions in the Voting Rights Act (VRA), have only placed further emphasis on the debate over voter disenfranchaisement. Over the past five decades, both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have consistently voted to expand the protections offered to vulnerable voters by the Voting Rights Act. And yet, the administration of the VRA has become more fragmented and judicial interpretation of its terms has become much less generous. Why have Republicans consistently adopted administrative and judicial decisions that undermine legislation they repeatedly endorse? Ballot Blocked shows how the divergent trajectories of legislation, administration, and judicial interpretation in voting rights policymaking derive largely from efforts by conservative politicians to narrow the scope of federal enforcement while at the same time preserving their public reputations as supporters of racial equality and minority voting rights. Jesse H. Rhodes argues that conservatives adopt a paradoxical strategy in which they acquiesce to expansive voting rights protections in Congress (where decisions are visible and easily traceable) while simultaneously narrowing the scope of federal enforcement via administrative and judicial maneuvers (which are less visible and harder to trace). Over time, the repeated execution of this strategy has enabled a conservative Supreme Court to exercise preponderant influence over the scope of federal enforcement.
Download or read book The Right to Vote written by Alexander Keyssar and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 2000, The Right to Vote was widely hailed as a magisterial account of the evolution of suffrage from the American Revolution to the end of the twentieth century. In this revised and updated edition, Keyssar carries the story forward, from the disputed presidential contest of 2000 through the 2008 campaign and the election of Barack Obama. The Right to Vote is a sweeping reinterpretation of American political history as well as a meditation on the meaning of democracy in contemporary American life.
Download or read book The Voting Rights Act written by Richard M. Valelly and published by CQ Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the Voting Rights Act which was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965, and describes the events leading up to it, the evolution of voting rights in the U.S., disenfranchisement of African Americans after Reconstruction, and the impact of this legislation.
Download or read book The Measure of American Elections written by Barry C. Burden and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-11 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings leading scholars together to examine the performance of elections across the United States, using a data-driven perspective.
Download or read book Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dissents written by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-07-19 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of key dissenting and majority opinions from U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. During her 27 years as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg became well known for her strongly worded dissenting opinions against the decisions of the conservative majority. Ginsburg was a fierce supporter of women’s rights whose personal experiences helped shape her into a feminist icon who employed logical, well-presented arguments to show that gender discrimination was harmful to all members of society. Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dissents features 15 legal opinions and briefs, including majority and dissenting opinions that Ginsburg drafted during her time on the U.S. Supreme Court and briefs from her career before she was appointed to the court in 1993.
Download or read book America s Constitution written by Akhil Reed Amar and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In America’s Constitution, one of this era’s most accomplished constitutional law scholars, Akhil Reed Amar, gives the first comprehensive account of one of the world’s great political texts. Incisive, entertaining, and occasionally controversial, this “biography” of America’s framing document explains not only what the Constitution says but also why the Constitution says it. We all know this much: the Constitution is neither immutable nor perfect. Amar shows us how the story of this one relatively compact document reflects the story of America more generally. (For example, much of the Constitution, including the glorious-sounding “We the People,” was lifted from existing American legal texts, including early state constitutions.) In short, the Constitution was as much a product of its environment as it was a product of its individual creators’ inspired genius. Despite the Constitution’s flaws, its role in guiding our republic has been nothing short of amazing. Skillfully placing the document in the context of late-eighteenth-century American politics, America’s Constitution explains, for instance, whether there is anything in the Constitution that is unamendable; the reason America adopted an electoral college; why a president must be at least thirty-five years old; and why–for now, at least–only those citizens who were born under the American flag can become president. From his unique perspective, Amar also gives us unconventional wisdom about the Constitution and its significance throughout the nation’s history. For one thing, we see that the Constitution has been far more democratic than is conventionally understood. Even though the document was drafted by white landholders, a remarkably large number of citizens (by the standards of 1787) were allowed to vote up or down on it, and the document’s later amendments eventually extended the vote to virtually all Americans. We also learn that the Founders’ Constitution was far more slavocratic than many would acknowledge: the “three fifths” clause gave the South extra political clout for every slave it owned or acquired. As a result, slaveholding Virginians held the presidency all but four of the Republic’s first thirty-six years, and proslavery forces eventually came to dominate much of the federal government prior to Lincoln’s election. Ambitious, even-handed, eminently accessible, and often surprising, America’s Constitution is an indispensable work, bound to become a standard reference for any student of history and all citizens of the United States.
Download or read book Citizenship as Foundation of Rights written by Richard Sobel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-26 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Citizenship as Foundation of Rights explains what it means to have citizen rights and how national identification requirements undermine them.
Download or read book The American Voter written by Angus Campbell and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1980-09-15 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On voting behavior in the United States
Download or read book Mobilizing Inclusion written by Lisa Garcia Bedolla and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-09 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Which get out the vote efforts actually succeed in ethnoracial communities, and why? Analyzing the results from hundreds of original experiments, the authors of this book offer a persuasive new theory to explain why some methods work while others do not. Exploring and comparing a wide variety of efforts targeting ethnoracial voters, the authors present a new theoretical frame: the social cognition model of voting, based on an individual's sense of civic identity, for understanding get out the vote effectiveness. Their book serves as a guide for political practitioners, for it offers concrete strategies to employ in developing future mobilization efforts.
