{"product_id":"blackballed-the-black-vote-and-us-democracy-isbn-9781681375595","title":"Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn incisive reflection on black electoral politics, disenfranchisement, and the lasting legacy of the civil rights movement—now with a brand-new essay on the Covid-19 pandemic, reparations, and the 2020 George Floyd protests.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBlackballed\u003c\/i\u003e is Darryl Pinckney’s meditation on a century and a half of participation by blacks in US electoral politics. In this combination of memoir, historical narrative, and contemporary political and social analysis, he investigates the struggle for black voting rights from Reconstruction through the civil rights movement to Barack Obama’s two presidential campaigns. Drawing on the work of scholars, the memoirs of civil rights workers, and the speeches and writings of black leaders like Martin Luther King and Stokely Carmichael, Andrew Young and John Lewis, Pinckney traces the disagreements among blacks about the best strategies for achieving equality in American society as well as the ways in which they gradually came to create the Democratic voting bloc that contributed to the election of the first black president.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInterspersed through the narrative are Pinckney’s own memories of growing up during the civil rights era and the reactions of his parents to the changes taking place in American society. He concludes with an examination of ongoing efforts by Republicans to suppress the black vote, with particular attention to the Supreme Court’s recent decision striking down part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlso included here is Pinckney’s essay “What Black Means Now,” on the history of the black middle class, stereotypes about blacks and crime, and contemporary debates about “post-blackness,” as well as a new essay, “Buck Moon in Harlem,” which reflects on Juneteenth and the ongoing fight for racial justice, and offers a glimpse of New York City amid the Covid-19 pandemic and the protests following the killing of George Floyd.“A capacious and mind-opening experience awaits within.” —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly \u003c\/i\u003estarred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This brief but incisive reflection on the history of voting among  African-Americans takes the form of a classic personal essay: light and  conversational, circling its subject in a deliberately meandering style  that ends up revealing more than a frontal attack might have.\" —\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A] slim but powerful volume.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Independent \u003c\/i\u003e(UK)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eBlackballed\u003c\/i\u003e is a masterfully-crafted study of American democracy and the changing role of the black vote within it, from Reconstruction to the election of Barack Obama. It is insightful, personal, informative, and remarkably timely. The book not only speaks to current questions about race within the social and political arenas, but to broader issues of the health and legitimacy of a democracy in which some voices are kept from entering the dialogue. \u003ci\u003eBlackballed\u003c\/i\u003e is one of those special works that effortlessly transports readers to another time while subtly drawing thematic ties to the present day. One leaves the experience not only appreciating the work done by generations past, but contemplating one’s own role in the historical arc.” —\u003ci\u003eChallenges to Democracy\u003c\/i\u003e blog, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School                     \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePraise for Darryl Pinckney\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “An extraordinary achievement.... This tender, often droll portrait of one young life is also an arrestingly mature, original account of the condition of being black through several generations and of America in the sixties—a major part of our history. [\u003ci\u003eHigh Cotton\u003c\/i\u003e] is also beautifully written, exhilaratingly intelligent, and a joy to read.” —Susan Sontag\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eWith High Cotton\u003c\/i\u003e, Pinckney joins the first ranks of American writers.... A major achievement.”  —Henry Louis Gates Jr.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “The essays [in \u003ci\u003eOut There: Mavericks of Black Literature\u003c\/i\u003e] are full of great personal feeling, intellectual curiosity, and original, groundbreaking research....He is simultaneously sympathetic, skeptical, and analytical.” —Lorrie Moore\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “In his formalism, one sees a mind that’s viewing things from a distance, [with] irony and danger and wit and darkness. But in the darkness there is this humor, a kind of joyous light.”  —Robert Wilson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eBlackballed\u003c\/i\u003e is a great argument for the complexities of history and politics—a welcome argument after four years of Trumpist rhetoric, brute and brutalizing in its simplicity.\" —Anthony Domestico, \u003ci\u003eCommonweal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eDarryl Pinckney \u003c\/b\u003eis the author of two novels, \u003ci\u003eHigh Cotton\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eBlack Deutschland,\u003c\/i\u003e three works of non-fiction, Out There: Mavericks of Black Literature, Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy, Busted in New York and Other Essays, and a memoir, \u003ci\u003eCome Back in September: A Literary Education on West 67th Street, Manhattan.\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"New York Review Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301103259877,"sku":"NP9781681375595","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781681375595.jpg?v=1767722733","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/blackballed-the-black-vote-and-us-democracy-isbn-9781681375595","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}