Book Review by Rodney A. Grunes
Although the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified in 1870, it was not until the passage and implementation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that enfranchisement became a reality for most Southern blacks. The Voting Rights Act suspended literacy tests and other obstacles to political participation and guaranteed blacks access to the ballot. Seldom, it would seem, has legislation been more successful. Black registration now approaches the level of white registration in most Southern states, and the number of black officeholders has increased dramatically.
In Whose Votes Count?, Abigail Thernstrom laments that these ‘successes' were the result of legislative, executive, and judicial policies that fundamentally altered the original intent of the Voting Rights Act. In Thernstrom's view, ‘the single aim’ of the Act was to remove barriers to black registration and voting in the South. States and counties that used the literacy test and had a voting turnout of less than fifty percent in the 1964 presidential election were covered. The Act temporarily banned and prohibited ‘renewed disenfranchisement’ by requiring all covered jurisdictions to ‘preclear’ new procedures with either the Department of Justice or the federal district court for the District of Columbia. Preclearance was to be limited to changes pertaining to registration and the mechanics of voting in order to prevent ‘the use of the back door once the front one was blocked.’ Beginning with the Supreme Court's decision in Allen v. Board of Elections, however, the Voting Rights Act was transformed into an instrument of affirmative action in which blacks and other ‘language’ minorities were guaranteed that their votes counted through proportional representation. In addition to calling attention to what was seen as a reshaping of the Act, Whose Votes Count? has as its broader objective ‘to suggest a way of thinking about the right to vote that remains true to generally shared values with respect to race, politics, and local autonomy.’
About the Author
Rodney A. Grunes. Associate Professor of Political Science, Centenary College of Louisiana; B.A. 1963, Drew University; M.A. 1967, Duke University; Ph.D. 1972, Duke University.
Citation
62 Tul. L. Rev. 849 (1988)