"One Person, No Vote reads like a speedy sequel of sorts to her previous book, the elegant and illuminating best-seller White Rage . . . Her new book seems to have been written from a state of emergency, in an adrenaline-fueled sprint. Anderson is a stinging polemicist; her book rolls through a condensed history of voting rights and disenfranchisement, without getting bogged down in legislative minutiae. This is harder than it looks . . . This trenchant little book will push you to think not just about the vote count but about who counts, too." - Jennifer Szalai, New York Times
"Anderson has a gift for illustrating how specific historical injustices have repercussive, detrimental influence on contemporary American life. . . . If White Rage is history as even-tempered cultural criticism--it was awarded the 2017 National Book Critics Circle citation in criticism--then One Person, No Vote is history as old-fashioned, coldblooded jeremiad: a lamentation about American democracy in crisis. Throughout One Person, Anderson’s tone, at turns urgent and indignant, seems to arise from the ease with which she can document abundantly--via investigative journalism, popular history and historical scholarship--the GOP’s determined efforts to purge American citizens and cull and homogenize the electorate." - Los Angeles Times
"Anderson’s description of the perpetual war that blacks and now Latinos have fought to get and keep the right to vote is impeccably researched, deftly written and, sadly, prescient. . . . One Person, No Votes punches above its weight, like a lecture from a professor with superb command of language." - Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Powerful . . . Her book is a disturbing drill down into how the right to vote is being slowly destroyed with too few of us noticing." - Washington Post
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One Person, No Vote
PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Non-Fiction Finalist
National Book Award Longlist for Non-Fiction
From the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of White Rage, the startling—and timely—history of voter suppression in America, with a foreword by Senator Dick Durbin.
In her New York Times bestseller White Rage, Carol Anderson laid bare an insidious history of policies that have systematically impeded black progress in America, from 1865 to our combustible present. With One Person, No Vote, she chronicles a related history: the rollbacks to African American participation in the vote since the 2013 Supreme Court decision that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Known as the Shelby ruling, this decision effectively allowed districts with a demonstrated history of racial discrimination to change voting requirements without approval from the Department of Justice.
Focusing on the aftermath of Shelby, Anderson follows the astonishing story of government-dictated racial discrimination unfolding before our very eyes as more and more states adopt voter suppression laws. In gripping, enlightening detail she explains how voter suppression works, from photo ID requirements to gerrymandering to poll closures. And with vivid characters, she explores the resistance: the organizing, activism, and court battles to restore the basic right to vote to all Americans as the nation gears up for the 2018 midterm elections.