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

This is a very solid recitation of the need for, passing of, long time reinforcement of, and eventual partial dismantling of America's Voting Rights Act of 1965. If one wanted to simplify its theme, it would be Republicans don't want you to vote unless its for them and Democrats want you to be able to vote...period. Before reading this, I thought I had learned everything I needed to know about disenfranchising minorities in America. I was wrong. This book goes into a whole other level of analysis of how majority (and sometimes just plurality) political interests manipulate laws and regulations to keep entire swaths of the population from having any meaningful say in their government. If I had any complaint of the work, it was the show more tendency for the author to cite unfavorable court decisions as political conspiracies and manipulations but favorable court decisions as just naturally intelligent and just. If I may be allowed one aside, I would like to urge this book be read by any Bernie Sanders supporters who recently claimed the 2016 closed primary in New York State (but not in Florida, for some reason) was worse than the disenfranchisement of blacks by the South. show less

This book is an onslaught. Berman, in meticulous detail, walks the reader through the history of the fight surrounding voting rights in modern times. From the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 up through the present day, he follows the ups and downs of the movement to secure the rights supposedly guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. I think this book will make you angry…real angry. But it might leave you with hope too. And it certainly will give you story after story of how conservatives from the Goldwater era to the Renquist/Regan era through today’s Roberts court have continually used specious politicking to justify removing measures that increase voter turnout and instituting those that suppress it; how show more at every victory voting rights were eroded again first by more blatant racism but then by post-racial arguments of color-blindness. Did I mention this book will make you angry? But the fight goes on and in his journalistic style, he gives the stories of those still inspired by Selma who remember the folks who died for their right to vote and aren’t ready to see their own taken away so easily.

I think everyone should read this book. It is dense, but it reveals so much about what is going on within our political system today. show less

I appreciated learning more of the history of the Voting Rights Act and the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision that did away with pre-clearance. Some history I knew, some I needed to be reminded of, and some I never knew. I particularly appreciated learning about personal and event connections that are largely not noticed or sometimes even communicated to the public at large. It is these connections that weave the web that constitutes our history.

recommended by Jess Young