Ari Berman. (2015). Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Ari Berman. 2015. Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Ari Berman, Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015.

Ari Berman. Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015.

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1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Berman, Ari
   • bioText: Ari Berman is the national voting rights correspondent at Mother Jones. His stories have appeared in The Nation, The New York Times, The Guardian, and elsewhere, and he is a frequent guest and political commentator on MSNBC, C-SPAN, and NPR. He is the author of Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics and Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. He lives in New York.
   • name: Ari Berman

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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.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Kirkus, starred review
   • content:

     "[I]ncisive... This emotional book runs the gamut... Not just a compelling history, but a cry for help in the recurring struggle to gain what is supposed to be an inalienable right."

2. • premium: False
   • source: Eric Foner, author of Gateway to Freedom
   • content: "Expertly taking us from the bloody streets of Selma to the current counterrevolution against the voting rights of black and poor Americans, Ari Berman reminds us that democracy can never be taken for granted, especially at a time when the courts are more than willing to abet efforts to limit the right to vote."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Melissa Harris-Perry, host of MSNBC's Melissa-Harris Perry Show and Presidential Professor of Politics and International Studies at Wake Forest University
   • content: "Ari Berman's Give us the Ballot is a must read for anyone who cares about the health of American democracy. Written with a deep respect for history, a keen journalistic sensibility, and a visceral passion for fairness, Berman's book takes us on a swift and critical journey through the last fifty years of voting in America. He begins on the Edmund Pettus bridge with the foot soldiers of Selma and concludes in the rotunda of the North Carolina statehouse with the protestors of Moral Mondays. All the critical figures of American voting rights appear in this book, but Berman allows no one story to dominate the narrative. His book is about the people, the ballot box, and our as yet unrealized ideal of fully free and fair elections. We have not yet arrived at the healthy democracy the 1965 Voting Rights Act promises is possible, but we have not given up hope. The struggle continues."
4. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from May 4, 2015
     Berman (Herding Donkeys) does a superb job of making the history of the right to vote in America not only easily understandable, but riveting. After recounting the story of the civil rights movement’s success in getting President Johnson to push the Voting Rights Act in 1965, Berman traces the erosion of that legislation over the subsequent half-century. Early appearances in the narrative by John Roberts and Samuel Alito foreshadow their eventual posture when they were named to the Supreme Court. Lay readers are likely to be surprised at how much
     successful pushback has occurred against what should be the basic right of democracy. Berman also makes clear that the illegal purging of supposed felons from Florida’s voting lists for the 2000 presidential election is more likely than the “butterfly ballot” to have been responsible for George W. Bush’s victory. This is the best kind of popular history—literate, passionate, and persuasive, balancing detail with accessibility. B&w illus.

5. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from May 1, 2015
     An incisive look at the many issues surrounding the right to vote. Berman (Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics, 2010), a contributing writer for the Nation and investigative journalism fellow at the Nation Institute, tracks the struggle to gain the vote, from Reconstruction, the backlash of Jim Crow, and the 1960s, when it all seemed to come together. The 1965 march across Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge was a tipping point. Before then, Congress and President Lyndon Johnson felt voting changes would endanger the president's Great Society project. The horror and brutality of that day changed everything, and the most liberal Congress since the New Deal passed the Voting Rights Act. After Johnson signed the act in August 1965, he said that the South was lost to the Democratic Party for the next generation. He was absolutely right. What he didn't foresee was the opening of the floodgates to deny and disenfranchise voters across the South and well beyond. The author recounts how the act enabled the Department of Justice to gain ground through three generations of cases. They outlawed literacy tests and poll taxes, dismantled gerrymandered districts and at large elections, and fought for a fair share of political power. This emotional book runs the gamut from great joy at the quest accomplished in 1965 to pride at the success of the judicial system in upholding voting rights to disbelief as the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush courts shattered 50 years of work. Voter ID laws, shortened early polling days, and voter roll purges are just the latest tactics in a fight that continues. Not just a compelling history, but a cry for help in the recurring struggle to gain what is supposed to be an inalienable right.

     COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

6. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from July 1, 2015
     

     Berman (contributing writer, The Nation; Herding Donkeys) has written the first book on the political and judicial career of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) since its original passage and subsequent successful litigation in the late 1960s. It covers the VRA's setbacks from conservative attacks up to the present day in the aftermath of Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, when part of the act was ruled unconstitutional. Most of the cases surround Section 5, which mandates federal approval of electoral laws in covered jurisdictions, almost all in the South, before going into effect. Berman also exposes at length that changes to electoral procedures intended to disenfranchise minority voters were not always prevented by the act--weakening majority-minority districts via racial gerrymandering, for instance, and more recent examples such as campaigns against voter fraud. In this way, Berman's text distinguishes itself from others that mainly assess the events leading up to and surrounding the act itself, such as Gary May's Bending Toward Justice. VERDICT General readers will appreciate the panoramic survey of the cases in which the VRA has been challenged and defended in federal and state courts and legislatures, and the fair inclusion of voices from both sides of the arguments. A timely and needed addition to the voting rights debate.--Jeffrey J. Dickens, Southern Connecticut State Univ. Libs., New Haven

     Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

7. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     June 1, 2015
     Even as the nation was recognizing the fiftieth anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march for equal rights in Selma, Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court was rolling back protections under the Voting Rights Act. The voting rights law eliminated poll taxes, literacy tests, and other efforts to disenfranchise minority voters. Berman analyzes the voting rights revolution in the South in the 1960s and the more recent counterrevolution across the nation to remove protections that conservatives see as promoting minority representation. Berman notes that since the election of the nation's first black president and the rise of the Tea Party, Republican legislators have introduced 180 bills in 41 states to restrict access to the ballot. The efforts have included tactics that on their face appear to be race-neutral (disenfranchising ex-felons, mandating government-issued ID cards, curtailing early voting) but have a disproportionately negative impact on minorities. This is a keen examination of the troubled history of challenges to the most basic right of U.S. citizenship.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

8. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     October 26, 2015
     Berman provides the definitive history of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, from its inception to the present. He keenly traces the politically motivated reasons to weaken the VRA and racial overtones that remain in efforts to eliminate it. Reader Zingarelli proves a perfect choice for this production. With a deep, aged voice, his narration commands attention and keeps listeners apace throughout. He captures hints of Berman’s tone and emotion and skillfully adjusts timing, pace, and emphasis to draw out some of the more dramatic elements of the narrative. A Farrar, Straus and Giroux hardcover.

9. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from April 1, 2016
     

     Berman describes the history of the Voting Rights Act, passed in 1965, and how it is now encountering its strongest challenges. Recounting the 50-year struggle within the United States, Berman shines a light on recent history to show that the right to vote came, and still comes, with a heavy price. (LJ 7/15)

     Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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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...

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The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America

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   • description: History / United States / 20th Century
2. • code: POL004000
   • description: Political Science / Civil Rights
3. • code: POL008000
   • description: Political Science / Political Process / Campaigns & Elections