4.0
Bending Toward Justice
ByPublisher Description
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.
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.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities4 Reviews
4.0
Giles K
Created almost 7 years agoShare
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Miranda M
Created almost 10 years agoShare
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mcf
Created about 10 years agoShare
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“I read this almost immediately after finishing Bill of the Century, Clay Risen's meticulous story of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and, despite their ostensibly similar subject matter, they're two wildly different books. Whereas Risen's is a detail examination of each political step in the long process to create and pass the Civil Rights Act, Bending Toward Justice is a narrative of the nation's gradual move toward the Voting Rights Act. Nearly three quarters of the book is spent in the deep south with protesters and marchers and it's a truly thrilling read, building to a fitting climax in Washington, DC. The last two chapters -- consisting of the renewals of the Act and the recent attempts by states at voter suppression -- are a fitting coda, but cannot possibly rise to the standard set by the rest of book.”
Chris
Created over 11 years agoShare
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“Fascinating history of the Voting Rights Act and all those men and women who fought so hard to obtain the right to vote. With the recent ruling in the Supreme Court it has become even more important to raise awareness of the many ways that various individuals have made all kinds of efforts to disenfranchise so many people from one of the most basic rights in our government. Namely, the right to vote.”
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