voting rights 
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
3/4/2021
Attacking Sunday Voting is Part of a Long Tradition of Controlling Black Americans
by Rebecca Brenner Graham
Efforts to limit "souls to the polls" campaigns to bring Black voters to early voting stations after Sunday church services is part of a broader campaign of voting rights but also reflects longstanding conflicts revolving around Black Americans' traditional use of Sunday as a day of leisure and communal freedom.
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SOURCE: The Guardian
2/25/2021
Fight To Vote: The Woman Who Was Key In 'Getting Us The Voting Rights Act'
Historian Carol Anderson explains the contributions of Amelia Boynton to the Selma movement and the erasure of women's organizing work from many histories of the movement.
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SOURCE: Vox
2/23/2021
The Supreme Court is About to Hear Two Cases that Could Destroy what Remains of the Voting Rights Act
Chief Justice John Roberts has a long record of hostility to the Voting Rights Act, and authored the decision that weakened it. The Supreme Court is preparing to hear cases that may allow him to destroy the VRA.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
2/98/2021
Black History is Often Shunned, Like the Book I Wrote
by Martha S. Jones
The historian of voting rights and Black women's activism examines the reaction to a planned discussion of her book through a Louisiana public library.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
2/11/2021
American Democracy Is Only 55 Years Old—And Hanging by a Thread
Atlantic Editor Vann Newkirk examines the recent and imperiled history of American democracy since the Voting Rights Act, including by interviewing Charles Hamilton, co-author of the keystone book "Black Power."
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SOURCE: Acadiana Advocate
1/30/3021
Lafayette Parish Library Director Retires Suddenly After Clash Over Voting Rights Programming
A Louisiana library system is under pressure from conservatives to include "both sides" of the debate over voting rights in its public programming.
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SOURCE: CNN
1/10/2020
Black Southerners are Wielding Political Power that was Denied their Parents and Grandparents
While the voter mobilization efforts that tipped Georgia's senate races to the Democrats have been much-discussed, they capitalized on a long-term shift in the Black population to the urban and suburban south, a "reverse great migration" that will be politically consequential for years to come.
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SOURCE: Slate
1/11/2021
The Only Way to Save American Democracy Now
by Richard R. Hasen
"We need bold changes to deal with the threat to democracy from an authoritarian wing of the Republican Party that appeared ready to abet Trump’s stealing of the election, as well as the separate problem that the Republican Party can continue to consistently win elections with minority support thanks to backward American election rules we have in place."
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SOURCE: New York Times
1/8/2021
How to Ensure This Never Happens Again
by Beverly Gage and Emily Bazelon
A menu of democratic reform initiatives ranging from strictly defining the electoral vote process to abolishing the electoral college: reforms needed to stop the temptation to undemocratic rule and authoritarianism.
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SOURCE: New York Times
1/8/2021
We Need a Second Great Migration
by Charles M. Blow
Times Columnist Charles Blow relocated from New York to Atlanta and says that American democracy would be healthier if younger African Americans migrated en masse to the South.
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SOURCE: USA Today
1/4/2021
Georgia's Rural Black Voters were Ignored and Suppressed. Now they Might Flip the Senate
Takeo Spikes, a native of Washington County, Georgia, retired from the NFL to earn and MBA and serves on the board of the New Georgia Project. He says that Black Georgians are realizing their power at the polls after decades of vote suppression and political discouragement.
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SOURCE: Bill Moyers
12/15/2020
Decades of Inequality Shadow Voter Turnout in Rural Georgia
A small-town voter drive reveals why only trusted family, friends and local leaders can boost turnout in the Senate runoffs.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
12/10/2020
The Long History of Black Women Organizing in Georgia Might Decide Senate Control
by Danielle Phillips-Cunningham
Black women in Georgia have long been leaders in building coalitions for political rights, labor protection, and equal justice under law. It's fitting that Black women have been leaders in the state's political shift toward the Democrats.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
12/5/2020
Trump’s Voter Fraud Yarn is Unraveling. But it can Still Help the GOP
Rick Perlstein suggests that the Republicans' unwillingness to condemn Trump's wild theories about a stolen election are part of a historical pattern of fear that if the electorate expands Republicans will be lose. The theories won't overturn this election, but they will be used to justify future restrictions on the ballot.
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SOURCE: New York Times
11/14/2020
Democrats Work to Defy History in Georgia Runoffs That Have Favored G.O.P.
Georgia's runoff election laws were instituted in response to a 1960s Supreme Court decision to eliminate the "county unit" system that had overrepresented white rural voters at the expense of urban and Black Georgians.
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SOURCE: MSNBC
11/7/2020
Will the Trump-Biden Election Disaster Finally Convince Us to Scrap the Electoral College?
by Kevin M. Kruse
Abolishing the Electoral College isn't a radical idea. It had bipartisan support in the 1960s as a reform consistent with the Supreme Court's rulings that established "one person, one vote" as the core principle of representation in a constitutional democracy.
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11/8/2020
There is Nothing Sacred About the Military Vote
by Rachel Gunter
After a patient count, Joe Biden has claimed victory, and fears that late-arriving military absentee ballots could be subject to litigation that might decide the election have receded. This is fortunate, because history shows parties won't hesitate to interfere with the military vote for political advantage.
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SOURCE: Made by History at The Washington Post
11/3/2020
What Modern Voter Suppression Looks Like In Florida
by Julio Capó Jr. and Melba V. Pearson
"The result of legal maneuvering in Florida is a 21st-century version of Jim Crow, now matured into James Crow Esq. The intent — to restrict minority community access to the ballot box — is the same, but the methods of voter suppression have become more sophisticated."
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SOURCE: Washington Post
11/2/2020
D.C. Man Fights to Educate Americans on the Importance of Voting
“No matter what position you have, in a democracy if you don’t have the right to have your voice heard, you cannot really be considered a full citizen,” Phil Portlock said.
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SOURCE: Made by History at The Washington Post
10/29/2020
This Year’s Elections Will Decide Whether America Witnesses A Third Reconstruction
by David A. Love
The United States has twice attempted to reorganize the nation's politics and institutions around principles of equality, and failed. A third reconstruction is needed to realize the promise of the Fourteenth Amendment.
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