Fact Friday: One Person, No Vote: how not all voters are treated equally by Carol Anderson with Tonya Bolden

Image: Bloomsbury

One Person, No Vote: how not all voters are treated equally by Carol Anderson with Tonya Bolden. 276 p. September, 2019. 9781547601078. (Review of arc courtesy of publisher.)

Fact Friday features One Person, No Vote: how not all voters are treated equally by Carol Anderson and Tonya Bolden. The one hundredth anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment was August 18. The Nineteenth Amendment gave women in the U.S. the right to vote in 1920. Fifty years earlier, Black men were given the right to vote with the Fifteenth Amendment. However, Black men were systematically disenfranchised, meaning denied the right to vote, by illegal poll tests, poll taxes and the threat of violence. You might think that is a thing of the past, but in the 2016 election, millions of mostly Black Americans were purged from the voter rolls according to this eye-opening book that was written originally for an adult audience and adapted for teens by Tonya Bolden. 

I work in a middle school. Why should seventh and eighth graders care about voting? In a scant five or six years they will be eligible to vote and should exercise their right by becoming an informed electorate. This includes understanding history and why this nationwide reversal of voting rights protections is deeply disturbing. 

In a conversational tone and accessible language, the authors walk the reader through history to the present day efforts to disenfranchise voters. Prepare to be upset through much of this. Then prepare to advocate. This book belongs in every library and social studies classroom.