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Title details for Poll Power by Evan Faulkenbury - Available

Poll Power

The Voter Education Project and the Movement for the Ballot in the American South

by Evan Faulkenbury
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The civil rights movement required money. In the early 1960s, after years of grassroots organizing, civil rights activists convinced nonprofit foundations to donate in support of voter education and registration efforts. One result was the Voter Education Project (VEP), which, starting in 1962, showed far-reaching results almost immediately and organized the groundwork that eventually led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In African American communities across the South, the VEP catalyzed existing campaigns; it paid for fuel, booked rallies, bought food for volunteers, and paid people to canvass neighborhoods. Despite this progress, powerful conservatives in Congress weaponized the federal tax code to undercut the important work of the VEP.
Though local power had long existed in the hundreds of southern towns and cities that saw organized civil rights action, the VEP was vital to converting that power into political motion. Evan Faulkenbury offers a much-needed explanation of how philanthropic foundations, outside funding, and tax policy shaped the southern black freedom movement.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Justice, Power, and Politics

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 10, 2019

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

      • ISBN: 9781469651323

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781469651330

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781469651330
      • File size: 6596 KB
    Kindle restrictions

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      Starred review from April 1, 2019

      Faulkenbury's (history, SUNY Cortland) original work on familiar and lesser-known civil rights activists, on the ground in the North and South before, during, and after the Voting Rights Act of 1965, successfully captures how the civil rights movement evolved from one of demonstrations to one that influenced and registered voters. Based on his graduate studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and relying on extensive archival work and oral histories, this work demonstrates the reach of the Voter Education Project (VEP) and grassroots organizing. Though Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation signaled the formal end of slavery, white supremacy and Jim Crow laws blocked the implementation of the 15th Amendment. It wasn't until the late 1950s and early 1960s that the VEP was established to help African Americans register to vote. Faulkenbury excels at showing how interactions among organizations in the North helped fund activists in the South, and how the Tax Reform Act of 1969 undermined further progress and ultimately led to the end of the VEP. VERDICT The well-written volume of original scholarship will appeal primarily to researchers interested in the civil rights movement.--William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport

      Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook
Kindle restrictions

subjects

Languages

  • English

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