Minority Vote Dilution

Minority Vote Dilution
Author: Chandler Davidson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 302
Release: 1984
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780882581767

Although more Blacks are voting and running for public office, vote dilution still exists and weakens minority participation

The Highlander Folk School

The Highlander Folk School
Author: Aimee Isgrig Horton
Publisher:
Total Pages: 368
Release: 1989
Genre: Education
ISBN:

This book reviews the history of the Highlander Folk School (Summerfield, Tennessee) and describes school programs that were developed to support Black and White southerners involved in social change. The Highlander Folk School was a small, residential adult education institution founded in 1932. The first section of the book provides background information on Myles Horton, the founder of the school, and on circumstances that led him to establish the school. Horton's experience growing up in the South, as well as his educational experience as a sociology and theology student, served to strengthen his dedication to democratic social change through education. The next four sections of the book describe the programs developed during the school's 30-year history, including educational programs for the unemployed and impoverished residents of Cumberland Mountain during the Great Depression; for new leaders in the southern industrial union movement during its critical period; for groups of small farmers when the National Farmers Union sought to organize in the South; and for adult and student leadership in the emerging civil rights movement. Horton's pragmatic leadership allowed educational programs to evolve in order to meet community needs. For example, Highlander's civil rights programs began with a workshop on school desegregation and evolved more broadly to prepare volunteers from civil rights groups to teach "citizenship schools," where Blacks could learn basic literacy skills needed to pass voter registration tests. Beginning in 1958, and until the school's charter was revoked and its property confiscated by the State of Tennessee in 1961, the school was under mounting attacks by highly-placed government leaders and others because of its support of the growing civil rights movement. Contains 270 references, chapter notes, and an index. (LP)

Whose Votes Count?

Whose Votes Count?
Author: Abigail M. Thernstrom
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 348
Release: 1987
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780674951952

"A Twentieth Century Fund study."Includes indexes. Bibliography: p. [257]-302.

The Voting Rights Act

The Voting Rights Act
Author: Richard M. Valelly
Publisher: CQ Press
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2006
Genre: Education
ISBN:

Examines the Voting Rights Act which was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965, and describes the events leading up to it, the evolution of voting rights in the U.S., disenfranchisement of African Americans after Reconstruction, and the impact of this legislation.