Author: Gary May
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465050735
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book 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.
Bending Toward Justice
Author: Gary May
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465050735
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book 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.
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465050735
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book 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.
A Treatise on State and Federal Control of Persons and Property in the United States
Author: Christopher Gustavus Tiedeman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Antitrust law
Languages : en
Pages : 676
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Antitrust law
Languages : en
Pages : 676
Book Description
The American Decisions
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law reports, digests, etc
Languages : en
Pages : 2038
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law reports, digests, etc
Languages : en
Pages : 2038
Book Description
A Digest of the Decisions of the Courts of Last Resort of the Seveal States, from the Earliest Period [1760] to the Year 1888, Contained in the One Hundred and Sixty Volumes of the American Decisions and the American Reports, and of the Notes Therein Contained
Author: Stewart Rapalje
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law reports, digests, etc
Languages : en
Pages : 1250
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law reports, digests, etc
Languages : en
Pages : 1250
Book Description
Lawyers' Reports Annotated
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law reports, digests, etc
Languages : en
Pages : 1276
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law reports, digests, etc
Languages : en
Pages : 1276
Book Description
Reports of cases argued and determined in the Supreme Court of Tennessee
The Yale Law Journal
A Digest of the Illinois Reports, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1863-1866; Embracing ... All the Decisions of the Supreme Court of the State, Published, from Breese to the Thirty-first (to the Thirty-eighth) Volume, Both Inclusive, of the Reports ... Second and Revised Edition
Author: Charles H. WOOD (of the Illinois Bar, and LONG (Joseph D.))
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 700
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 700
Book Description
Cyclopedia of Law and Procedure
American Law Reports Annotated
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law reports, digests, etc
Languages : en
Pages : 1620
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law reports, digests, etc
Languages : en
Pages : 1620
Book Description