{"product_id":"whose-votes-count-affirmative-action-and-minority-voting-rights-paperback","title":"Whose Votes Count?: Affirmative Action and Minority Voting Rights - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eAbigail M. Thernstrom\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that all citizens have the right to vote without regard to their \"race, color, or previous condition of servitude.\" For almost a century the Fifteenth Amendment was a dead letter. Throughout the South millions of nonwhite Americans were excluded from the political process by poll taxes, literacy tests, and other devices. The landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 sought to end that injustice. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn this absorbing book, political scientist Abigail Thernstrom analyzes the radical transformation of the Voting Rights Act in the years since its passage. She shows how a measure carefully crafted to open the polling booths to southern blacks has evolved into a powerful tool for affirmative action in the electoral sphere--a means to promote black and Hispanic officeholding by creating \"safe\" seats for minority candidates. What began as an effort to give minorities a fair shake has become a means of ensuring a fair share. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThernstrom demonstrates how voting rights have created a \"political thicket\" in which Congress, the courts, and the justice Department have been lost. Why this should be true, how small statutory changes led to large and unexpected results, how civil rights groups prevailed against a conservative Senate, how Republicans have benefited from gerrymandering to increase black officeholding--these stories are all part of Thernstrom's well-told tale. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEven though the concept of the right to vote retains an aura of moral simplicity, the issue of minority voting rights is perhaps the most complex, yet least studied, of all affirmative action issues. \u003ci\u003eWhose Votes Count?\u003c\/i\u003e should stimulate the overdue discussion that the subject deserves among all those concerned with American politics.\u003ch3\u003eBack Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Thernstrom maneuvers successfully between the civil rights ideology and the requirements of democratic politics. She sustains a strong concern for the struggles of American blacks while conceding very little to the affirmative action or electoral quota position. Exactly right.' - Michael Walzer, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 308\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.89 x 9.24 x 6.05 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e January 01, 1989\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51773641425184,"sku":"9780674951969","price":82.8,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/f6b398c001007c203a9d869d4bb1b755_67b89921-cd38-4d57-84d2-7d5b7253318c.webp?v=1780429649","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/whose-votes-count-affirmative-action-and-minority-voting-rights-paperback","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}