A war of sections : how deep South political suppression shaped voting rights in America / Steve Suitts.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Suitts, Steve, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African Americans--Suffrage--Alabama--History--20th century.

African Americans.

Voter suppression--Alabama--History--20th century.

Voter suppression.

African Americans--Alabama--Politics and government--20th century.

Racism--Alabama--History--20th century.

Racism.

Alabama--Race relations.

Alabama.

Alabama--Politics and government--1951-.

African Americans--Politics and government.

African Americans--Suffrage.

Politics and government.

Race relations.

Genre:

History

Physical Description:

x, 550 pages : illustrations (black & white), map ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Athens, Georgia : NewSouth Books, an imprint of The University of Georgia Press, [2023]

Summary:

"In a sweeping reinterpretation of the history of disfranchisement, Steve Suitts illuminates how a century of political conflicts in Alabama came to shape both some of America's best achievements in voting rights and its continuing struggles over voter suppression. A War of Sections tells the unknown political history symbolized today by the annual pilgrimage of presidents and celebrities across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. It is the story of how that crucial, tragic day in Selma in 1965 was only the flashpoint of a much longer history of failures and successes involving conflicts not only between blacks and whites in Alabama but between white political factions warring in the state over voting rights. Suitts recasts the context and much of the content of disfranchisement in Alabama as an unremitting, decades-long sectional battle in white-only politics between the state's rural Black Belt and north Alabama counties. He uncovers important Black and white heroes and villains who collectively shaped the arc of voting rights in Alabama and ultimately across the nation. A War of Sections offers a new understanding of the political dynamics of resistance and change through which a southern state's long-standing democratic failures ironically provided motivation for and instruction to a reluctant nation regarding unmatched ways to advance universal voting. Along the way, the book introduces from this unheard past some prophetic voices that speak to the paramount issues of America's commitment to the universal right to vote -- then and now." -- Publisher's description.

Contents:

Introduction: Alabama's Political Geography in Voting Rights History

Part 1. A Forgotten Evins Amendment: Black Belt Defeat after a Fraudulent Past

Boswell, Boswell Jr., and Big Jim

The Rise of Black Registration and White Resistance

Voter Registration, Commie Fronts, Justice, and State Sovereignty

Prequel to the Voting Rights Act of 1965

The Voting Rights Act of 1965

Sequel to the Voting Rights Act of 1965

Part 2. The End and the Beginning of the Disfranchising Poll Tax

Black Belt Politics: Tax Dollars at Work on the Roads

Black Belt Politics: Tax Dollars at Work in Education

Exceptions to the Rulers

It's Been a Long Time Comin'

Ending the War of Sections

Alabama's Cotton Curtain

Bridging the Past and the Future.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Electronic version: Suitts, Steve. War of sections.

ISBN:

9781588385130

1588385132

9781588384911

1588384918

OCLC:

1350521714