Give Us the Ballot

The modern history of the fight over the vote, from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 through the long effort to expand it and the longer effort to cut it back. Berman reports the machinery of the franchise, the rules and rulings that quietly decide who is actually heard, and shows that the battle did not end with the great victory but entered a new and quieter phase. The single most on-lens modern title on this shelf.

The journalist who has made voting rights his subject through a long stretch when the subject returned to the center of American politics. Give Us the Ballot is the modern history of the fight over the vote, from the 1965 act through the decades of effort to expand and to restrict it. He reports the machinery of the franchise, the rules that decide who is heard.