schuster logo here is not the traditional logo. it is of a woman. have you seen it? were showing it to our tv audience. if you buy a book make sure you see this logo i've never seen this before. >> while rebecca is the author a revolutionary collar woman's anger. thanks for being on productivity. >> i went to law school to be an election lawyer. i then moved to washington, d.c. and became a bookseller. i never really got there. the interest is always there. this book came out i thought we have to do it. i hadn't read it, i thought this

is one of the most important books we will see this year. please clap for carol. [applause] was also cooperated by the actual reading of this book. this book is hard. it's wonderful and it teaches you so much in so little space. i think there are 100 footnotes in the first chapter. seriously it is a book that you can read and reread and you will find different things you missed. i encourage everyone to read it and share it. pierce carol to talk about it. [applause]

>> thank you so much for being here. what i would like to do is to start off with a story that frames the story about disfranchisement, then move us into a piece of the history of it, and then do readings out of the book. i am going to start with the way we think about disfranchisement. i'm going to start with macy. it was 1946. macy was the veteran. macy had fought the fascist and want. macy was a black man from georgia. he came back home from fighting the fascist and he knew about all else that he was an american citizen. because, that is what veteran is. in georgia macy was determined that he was going to exercise his citizenship rights. he was going to vote.

in 1946 georgia. i feel like this is a spoiler alert. so, macy was like what am i going to to? i'm going to vote but there's no election going on and jean is a mean dog. mean. eugene was running on a platform that you keep the ends where they belong. because black folks came out of the second world war the level of insurgency. when you fight the fas fascist,n you fight area supremacy and are

fighting under the banner of the atlantic charter, freedom from fear, freedom from want, you want some of that democracy for yourself. that was macy. so, he goes down to both. there is a sign at taylor county that says the first negro that boats the last thing he ever does. macy was like i survived world war ii, what's georgia got? so he went and voted, he was the only black person in taylor county that cast a ballot. he went home and it was quiets. it was quiet for a few days. then. macy goes to the door and opens it and he said would you mind stepping outside. and he said sure. he steps outside and he hears a

gun and it was a firing squad. and they laid him out. they looked and walked away. macy's mother ran out and sees her baby on the porch bleeding riddled with bullets she picks him up and drags him to the hospital. but this is 1946 georgia and black people don't have the right to healthcare. they have a jim crow healthcare system. they looked at him and said you can put them there. they put him in a room the size of a closet and nobody saw him for six hours it took macy two days to die.

that kind of election violence is how we often conceptualize this franchise of black voters. thus the violence they want to look at how you get around the 15th amendment that says the right to vote should not be abridged on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. it was a range of was like the

literacy tests. where they are demanding that people who had been in underfunded schools and where they're not even high schools for black children would be able to read. large portions of the constitution and then interpreted to the liking and then he had to pay by the time the u.s. is fighting nazis only 3% 97% of african-american adults of those so wil was not registered to vote. the bulk of african-americans lived in the south.

you have nonviolent protesters led by john lewis and williams facing alabama state troopers and sheriff james clark policy that are sitting on horses with bull whips wrapped in barbed wire. as these nonviolent protesters that were symbolically carrying the body of jimmy lee jackson who had defended his mother against a beating during the voting rights and as they were carrying that body to governor george wallace and montgomery they ran into alabama state troopers. we saw that seen on the admin

bridge, blood a sunday. it was so horrific that abcs movie of the week was cut into show the footage. the nation was appalled. we hold the right to vote to be basic, fundamental to democracy. how can it happen one people are just trying to register to vote. that, plus the killing of reverend reed who had come down to selman and he was bludgeoned to death for believing that black people had the right to vote, led the united states to pass the voting rights act of 1965. one of the greatest pieces of legislation ever because it worked. whereas in the early 1960, the number of african-americans

registered to vote was in the single digits in terms of percentage. by 1967 it was almost 60%. the voting rights acts worked. it may have worked too well for some folks. this may be a library, but that sounded like church. so, by the time we start seeing elections and african-american selected and then there was the election in 2010 we remember that election i knew this was church. in that election we often think about what happened in florida, you know, hanging chads, butterfly ballots, voting machines that can't count. but i want to take us to

missouri. there is something that happened there that is affecting us right now. nearly 50000 voters were perched off the roles of the st. louis portable election in st. louis. illegally purged. they were not notified. when they came to vote their names are not on the roles the poll workers cannot get downtown because the lines are busy. they just start sending people downtown to the board of elections in the scholarly term it was a hot mess. and hours are drizzling by. the polls are getting ready to close and it still packed with people who were illegally raked off the roles and unable to vote.

so, the democrats sued to keep the polls open for three hours and let the citizens be able to vote. immediately after the republicans countersuit in a higher court in that court shut the polls down as 745. know what the republicans said was that this attempt to keep the polls open for three additional hours, this is an example of massive rampant voter fraud. how many of you have heard voter fraud? massive, rampant, voter fraud. what were seeing in st. louis, we have dead people on the roles, we have dogs on the roles.

people voting over and over. voter fraud. u.s. senator kit by carry that message into the u.s. congress. as congress is shaping the help america vote act to deal with the reality of the troubles in florida like machines that can account, that reality, they put the lie of voter fraud on the same plane and inserted it in federal law. thereby we must be able to deal with this massive voter fraud by having voter ids. now, let me pick up the story. indiana stepped into the breach.

secretary of state, republican recall back in 2001 and 2002 election integrity was a huge issue. the problem was people were losing confidence in the system there is a fear of votes being stolen even if it did not pan out to be true. the fear was still there. in other words, based on the perception that have been carefully crafted cultivated and stuck by the gop, state governments believe they had a mandate, calling to wrestle this voter impersonation fraud to the ground. indiana's republican legislators set out to ada barrier to the polls while making sure we are balanced and honest to prove it was not politically motivated

although every democrat voted against the bill and every republican supported it. the 2006 paul required government issued photo id to vote. defined what types of hygienic vacation was acceptable and secured an offramp of a provisional ballot of those who did not have an idea at the time but could provide the appropriate identification within days. they immediately challenge this given there was no evidence that indiana's voter id law is justified by any voter id

problem. the real motivation was partisan, geared to disenfranchise as many minority voters as possible. the second circuit heard the drumbeat and believe that stopping and preventing voter fraud was worth the cost. the organizations repealed the decision to the u.s. supreme court. the aclu and naacp went after the court issue. there was no voter fraud. therefore there is no state interest at stake. certainly nothing that could warrant the assault on the 15th amendment. it bears repeating that indiana had not identified a single instance of voter impersonation fraud occurring at the polls in the history of indiana. no one in the state has ever been charged with that crime.

ever. no evidence was presented to the legislature making it at best a solution in search of a problem. to punctuate that., the aclu emphasize that even in this hearing before the u.s. supreme court, no such evidence was presented in this litigation. there were the tried-and-true anecdotes about the dead voting in st. louis. all of those stories had been debunked. so they asked what state interest could possibly justify the burden based on the right to vote. indiana had pointed to

pre-identification cards to ensure there were protections. the state assured the court that only 1% of indiana's voting age lack the necessary identification. the fact that supposedly only 1% did not happen id was hardly negligible. i was 43000 citizens. but it was much worse. a recent survey of voters found that approximately 16% of all voting eligible residents did not happen id. 13% of current registered voters did not have a license or identification card.

another study found that white citizens were 11.5 percentage points are likely the black citizens to have the accepted credentials to vote. the situation was exacerbated by those trying to obtain identification from the dmv. in a given week, 60% of applicants for licenses are turned away because they failed to have the appropriate documents mandated by the dmv. the states offer of a free id was a brilliant smokescreen. that the actual documents required were not so easy to get and often came with -- by they would be voter. they notice that a birth certificate was necessary to get

a drivers license but in a catch-22, and marion county were more than 200,000 of the states black population live, the health department required a drivers license to get a copy of a birth certificate. the tangle of rules, regulations and the state voter id laws had consequences. the supreme court didn't see it that way. the majority of justices saw before them the hallucination of those in the city stealing elections and undermining democracy. the court recognized the only kind of voter fraud that it addresses is person voter impressioimpersonation.

in any of that occurring in indiana at any time in its history. that easily should have been the end of it. but it wasn't. instead, flagrant examples of such fraud habit document. he pulled out the story of the story of william boss tweed from a 1968 election. that was followed by a swan dive into the swamp of the canine intent voters. not only did the court swallow whole the myth of rampant voter fraud but that justices couldn't fathom the idea of needing an id

especially because they failed to provide their driver's license referring. >> indiana voter id law was, under this reasoning constitutional. this was judicial domain at its worst. indiana didn't need to provide any proof whatsoever that voter fraud, much less rampant voter fraud existed or that you are in the history of the state has ever been charged or convicted of a crime. instead, each example that justices held up would not and could not be stopped by voter id requirements. especially absentee ballots.

because they are overwhelmingly used by whites indiana had exempted it from the law. . . . data, not enough. as hard as the aclu and naacp tried, there seemed to be no amount of evidence and no documentation that the justices could accept this persuasive. the lawyers laid out information about the limited number of bureau of motor vehicles. the scarcity of public transportation to get to the scattered facilities. the difficulty of obtaining a birth certificate. they worked to explain how this

innocuous sounding loft was a targeted hit. especially for those who did not have the financial resources to amass the documentation to get the necessary id. the naacp and aclu noticed the strong correlation between race and poverty in indiana. and that sca 480 through the stripped the populations of their right to vote. as far as the court was concerned however, with the naacp and aclu identified as a constitutional dangerous on was no more than smoke and mirrors. while the mythical beast of voter fraud, that was real. thank you. [applause] now, in this section, this comes out of the chapter of voter role purchase. i am in georgia right now. -- [laughter]

53,000. and brian is in this chapter but right now for this reading i will focus in on chris call back. call his name. his most devastating weapon to date however, had been interstate crosscheck. which he has nurtured and promoted and is an important device to eliminate voter fraud from the american clinical landscape. the program is supposed to root out those that are registered to vote in two different states as part of a national move to bring more integrity to the voter rolls. and to provide a solution of registration systems that cannot keep up with a society of voters who moved from state

to state. now, it works through an alliance of 27 states. which sends more information to arkansas to upload. nskris kobach kansas then searches for comparisons of registered voters to weed out duplicates. interstate crosscheck, which by 2012, and more than 45 million voter records. matches first, middle and last names. date of birth, last four digits of the social security number. and suffix is applicable. to identify those who may be going from state to state to vote, tainting election after election. [laughter] at least, that is the narrative that kris kobach told when he stumbled upon lincoln l wilson. a 66-year-old republican that owned homes in both kansas and colorado. wilson thought he was well within his rights to vote in local elections in both states. i would vote for president in

one state and local issues in both places, he explained. especially when he saw his property tax bill skyrocket. and resolve there would be no taxation without representation. now, what looked logical to wilson however, and friendly not that much of a big deal to the local prosecutor, was a red flag to kris kobach. to pursue charges against the man with a vengeance. kris kobach simply needed to make an example of him. 18 months and nearly $50,000 in legal fees. a $6000 fine, $158 in court costs. and a guilty plea to three misdemeanors later. kris kobach had his victory. wilson simmered. kris kobach came after me for an honest mistake. damn right i am upset! i'm a convicted man now. wilson however, was in many ways, a fluke. crosscheck is such a fundamentally flawed database

that its success rate is actually an epic sale -- and epic fail for democracy. to me voters have been -- massive purges have wiped more than a million american citizens from the electoral map. in virginia, for example, 342,556 names seemed to be suspect. those on the inactive voters list, where removed, meaning a stunning 41,637 names were canceled from voter rolls. most just before election day in november 2014. texas set out to purge 80,000

voters. even though the crosscheck match was weak. only a court order prompted by a lawsuit from a man that the system had marked as dead, stopped the process. in ohio, cross checks flag close to half a million voters. north carolina secretary of state alerted the republican dominated that at least 35,750 dual voters were stocking the rules. in crosscheck seemed to identify a total of more than a million unscrupulous voters. in the 2016 election, it was even worse. especially given the slim popular vote margin that ultimately determined who won the electoral college. arizona purged almost 271,000

voters. michigan removed nearly 450,000 voters. north carolina managed to eliminate close to 600,000 from the system. the staggering numbers fueled the narrative of massive rampant voter fraud. a voter roll so unkempt that the deadhead ample opportunity [lto rise from the grave and taint an election! that of course, meant that the kris kobach program had successfully spun its web of lies. at least in the views of 30,000 feet. but up close, neither the list nor the database could withstand scrutiny. the problem is twofold. tfirst, despite the hype and marketing, the program does not actually match on every

parameter. and not all states require the same information that crosscheck uses to purge the roles. social security numbers for used.le, are rarely ohio does not bother with a persons middle name. suffixes rarely make it in. as a result, they believe james willie brown is the same voter as james arthur brown as james clifford brown, as james lynn brown. the possibilities for error is exponential! in georgia alone, there are nearly 400 james brown's. and in north carolina, supposedly more than 35,000 illegal voters simply evaporated when the state hired an ex-fbi agent to bring them to justice. he found exactly 0 double voters from the crosscheck

list. in fact, researchers at stanford, harvard, yale and university of pennsylvania, hdiscovered that cross checks had an error rate of more than 99 percent. the lack of consistency, rigor and accuracy led a shocked database expert his clients include several fortune 500 companies to dismiss cross checks childish methodology. it is too error-prone. god forbid if your name is garcia! i wish there were 858,000 in the us. and your name is joseph or jos . because you're probably suspected of voting in 27 states. [laughter] cross checks over reliance on a handful of selective data points feeds into the second major problem. it is a program infected with racial and ethnic bias. minorities in america tend to

have common or shared last names. if your last name is washington, there is an 89 percent chance that you are african-american. hernandez, a 94 percent chance that you are hispanic. kim, a 95 percent chance that your agent. garcia, lee and jackson, all signal a strong probability of being a minority in the united states. because minorities are overrepresented in 85 of 100 of the most common last names. as a result, when crosscheck zeros in on name matches, whites are underrepresented. by eight percent on the purge list. while african-americans are over represented. by 45 percent. asian americans, by 31 percent. and hispanics by 24 percent. with crosscheck on similar last

names it has blasted a hole through minority voting rights. -- were purged of preventing double voting and fraud. the depth of this disfranchisement, of wringing the right to vote out of american citizens led award-winning colonist charge appears to conclude, kris kobach is jim crow walking. an investigative journalist after surveying the racial casualties in ohio, knew that it was not just kansas secretary of state but an entire gop apparatus that decided that the only way to win an election, was by stealing american citizens vote. a brand-new jim crow.

today on election day, they're not going to use white sheets to keep away black voters. today, they are using spreadsheets. thank you. [applause] and i know that this sounds daunting. i mean, this has not been an uplifting conversation so far. [laughter] from what i am guessing right here. so -- the last chapter in this book i call, the resistance. and i zero in on that epic battle in alabama. against roy moore and doug jones. it was some sheer jedi. [laughter] i start off this chapter by laying out alabama.

the kind of poverty that black folks have to deal with.the kind of public health crises, the kind of education crises, and alabama ranking in the bottom tier, consistently, on all of these quality of life indicators. this, is the toxic base that gave rise to judge roy moore. as a republican candidate for the u.s. senate. in a 2017 special election. his bible thumping tribes inembodied the sense of righteo god ordained racism. that have already doomed the state to the bottom tier. his resume was a testament to homegrown rebel canon, masquerading as homespun patriotic symbolism. despite his obvious shortcomings, the idea senator roy moore was not so far-fetched. not only had republicans won every u.s. senate election in alabama, over the past 25 years, but since the advent of shelby county deed holder which was a supreme court decision that gutted the voting rights act, the state had a powerful

array of voter process of techniques and laws targeted at the one constituency that could possibly give doug jones something beyond a snowballs chance in hell and a sliver of hope of winning. each redrawn boundary, each closed polling place, each understaffed, barely equipped polling station. each long line and each id requirement, all negatively affected voter turnout. the first test was the 2014 midterm election. as naacp legal defense fund president noted, alabama voter turnout reached a shameful nadir. plummeting to the lowest in decades. in counties with sizable minority populations in fact,

alabama achieved what no other state had. a full five percent decline in voter turnout. the most precipitous drop in the nation. secretary of state, john merrill and other republican lawmakers claim they simply did not see the problem. the issue of access to the ballot box had nothing to do with alabama rejecting government issued public housing id. closing the dmv and the black belt counties. the ailing the hours at courthouse is. placing broken links and misleading inconsistent information on the state website. offering online registration of people without even the utbasic fiber optics. most us computers in their rural areas. suggesting the alabamians could ride nonexistent transportation to other counties or touting a mobile voter id card unit. that provided only two percent of the cards needed. the problem, john merrill said, was the people.

if you are to sorry or lazy to get up off of your rear and to go register to vote, or to register electronically and then to vote, then you do not deserve that privilege. as he twisted, not only state constructed barriers, interpersonal failings. but also the 15th amendment into a privilege. and not a right. as long as i'm secretary of state of alabama, you're going to have to show some initiative to become a registered voter in this state. alabama was in other words, going to continue to treat the right to vote for african americans as an obstacle course. creating more hurdles and changes to jump over and walls to climb. frankly, it looked hopeless. roy moore was on the cusp of shaping the laws for the united states of america.

in the 21st century. with a vision that was clearly 19th-century antebellum.the wing and a prayer consensus was that it would require finding enough disgusted whites combined with the black voter turnout rates that surpassed even that for obama. to stop a bigot, an alleged serial pedophile from being elected as a tu.s. senator. one of moore 's colleagues added another reality. southern baptist controlled the whole damn state and they will vote for roy. it will be a landslide. yet, there is always been more than one kind of christianity turning in alabama. as martin luther king jr. called upon it in 1963 from a birmingham jail, so too did the

greater birmingham ministries and bethel ame church in 2017. and it can never be forgotten that the state that produced the eugene -- sheriff jim clark and judge roy moore 's also created the civil rights warriors. who took down and defeated bull, jim and now roy in their crosshairs. [laughter] [applause] yeah. [applause] and now i'm going to take us to the night of the election because that section i am skipping tis what the civil rights warriors did. [laughter] roy moore nonetheless, had a lock on the republican stronghold in most of the northern sectors of the state. and the vote tallies began to roll in, his lead continued to grow. it looked almost

insurmountable. as the votes continued to be counted, the elections seemed to mirror the classic mohammed ali -- with black voters apparently overwhelmed, outmatched and heading for sure defeat at the hands of a much more powerful opponent. but then, a blazing uppercut cart roy moore squarely on the jaw! and sent his hopes snapping back. as black people punched above their waste and d delivered an unexpected and well delivered stunning blow. and so fittingly, the first indication that moore was in serious trouble came from a legendary place. selma, lord thelma! explained the daughter of martin luther king jr. it is no coincidence, she tweeted. that selma, pushed doug jones ahead for good. as the election results kept rolling in, the black voter turnout surprised almost everyone.

the stealth of the get out the vote campaign. which made it seem so last-minute. they apparently nonchalant, with media and posters hovered asking questions and the significant barriers to the voting booth that alabama crafted, what about a kind of confidence or resignation that blacks would just not vote. indeed, if the overall voter turnout rate had been the 25 percent that merrill had predicted, perhaps moore, for whom he cast his ballot, would have won. but voters showed up with surges well beyond 50 percent in counties favorable to jones. the people in the black belt counties, who were weighed down by everything that alabama could throw at them, were equally impressive. jones won an average of 73.4 percent of the vote in those counties. with turn off the averaged 45.4 percent.

about five percentage points higher than the state average. the black belt simply came through. and while selma had more reeling birmingham, truly deliver the knockout mblow. they are, jones picked up 83,213 more votes than moore paid while republican turnout was significantly less. there simply were not ouenough white evangelical votes left in alabama to revive him. there would be no recovery. there would be no getting up from the account. and as a result, there would be no senator in front of roy moore 's name. as a result became evident, the disgraced judge immediately raised the specter of voter fraud. and pointed to overwhelmingly black birmingham. the same way kate vaughn had pointed to st. louis and donald

trump to philadelphia as the culprit. moore assisted the black vote out rate was too high. and the republican vote was seriously too low. for him it could only mean one thing, voter fraud! the charge of course, was as hollow as the man. and frankly, all of those before him who gave voice to that lie. because in alabama, as in the united states, african-americans no, somebody paid a big price so they could come and vote. there were people who had hoses turned on them. people had dogs turned on them. and unfortunately, in the 21st century, there were people that had to overcome every barrier that alabama put in their way. and they did! but let's be clear, they should not have had to.

voting is neither an obstacle course nor privilege. it is a right. thank you. [applause] thank you. thank you. thank you. [applause] thank you. thank you. thank you. [applause] thank you. i am ready for questions. [laughter] thank you, stay questions from this microphone with about 15 minutes. then we will include some calls from booktv viewers. come up to this microphone and take a couple of extra steps. thanks. >> hi, first of all, thank you so much for coming out and i hope that everyone here has a plan to vote this november. please do! we need it. >> i like your shirt. >> thank you!

not from texas, i'm from connecticut. sorry for joe lieberman. [laughter] my question comes about the legacy particularly with the idea that they just politely asked for the right to vote. that they would just like please, let us vote and people were like sure, here you go. [laughter] so, with regard to policing for folks of color in that we are not allowed to be angry or mad, how do we counteract the stability argument in that we need to keep our voices low and calm and nice so that the white folks are keeping up their privilege for us so we can take rights. >> so we cannot kavanaugh? >> we cannot kavanaugh. [laughter] [applause] >> this is why, one of the classes i teach is the civil rights movement. and i start off that class because we get this kind of

sanitized, watered down version of the civil rights movement so folks do not understand how changes made. i start off with how many of you have heard this? rosa sat down, martin stood up! he had a dream! [laughter] and we all overcame! you know, it has basically been reduced to that. but when you see what it took to have movement, -- i teach movement a strategy. and i teach movement with my students understanding that it was not about martin luther king. he was important but there could not have been movement with just martin luther king. i mean, for like the montgomery bus boycott. you have to have the women's political committee and joanne robinson, who are sitting there

late at night, cranking out 30,000, and rumor this not when you get a xerox machine and you can just print. i need 30,000 copies, thanks! no! you have got to have this old -- i am thinking about the kinds of you know biceps you got to have to crank out 30,000 of those. and then to set up a distribution system. throughout the system to get the word out. so, what it took for movement and the right to vote was a key element in that. and so there is this moment because my students, we are going to that battle for the right to vote. there are counties in mississippi that are majority black where there are no black registered voters. zero! and other counties there may be one i mean, it is -- and when they were trying to register folks to vote, we do what bob

moses did, before freedom -- he is driving around and he is getting beaten on the courthouse steps. for registering or trying to register black people to vote. when herbert lee is killed by a state senator, then when lewis allen is killed because he saw the state senator kill herbert lee. then, and we are going then, people are dying. like snipes, people are dying for the right to vote. when we get to selma, this is been a long, ongoing battle. an indigenous battle that they were getting wore out, the student nonviolent coordinating committee, and they are hammering and sheriff jim clark is not moving. he is proud of himself.

then selc comes in and we start getting the churn, the beatings. that moment on the edmund pettis bridge -- it took decades of struggle. we don't know how many bodies there are. this wasn't, hi! we need the right to vote. okay? [laughter] it was not that. and it was not like that southern dominated congress, the southern democrats dominated congress because they were being able to be reelected over and over. because they did not have to appeal to the most of their constituency. one of the things i do when i taught at the university of missouri, i was teaching my american history class and i have 300 students in there. i would say, how many seniors are in here?

because this is the survey, right? there were three or four that held off on the required course until they honestly probably had to have it to walk across the stage. so the parents did not -- you did not take american history? [laughter] so three or four students raise their hands and i say, i only have to be responsive to your needs. what do you want? do you want to not take the exam and still get an a in here? we can do that. meanwhile my freshmen are like -- [laughter] that's not fair! but these are the only folks that will be doing my course evaluations. [laughter] and so i am going to become teacher of the year based on those four alone. this is how you get to be to the senior positions in congress. because you do not have to have

real elections. so they are throttling down and you have this insurgency to get out of the black community. you have power! going over my dead body. we have been at the moral arc of the universe. yeah, yeah! that is one of the things that is important to remember from where we are right now. it looks daunting. so after the 2016 election when i was teaching the civil iorigh movement class. i walked in because the students are just shellshocked. i said imagine -- the mayor hates you. city council can't stand you. school board doesn't want to see your children educated. the judge's in the town -- the cops -- the state

representative, they don't represent you. your congressman? your senator? you're right! in your president they want you gone. what are you going to do? and they are like -- and i said because the folks in mississippi figured it out in 1950. they are like, yeah! [laughter] yeah! and that is one of the things. so that's what happens when you get the sanitized soundbite version of the civil rights movement. you do not understand how many failures there were, you do not understand how many missteps you do not understand the depth of the violence you face. all of the obstacles i had to

overcome. they don't understand the strategies they had to deploy. you do not understand the kinds of alliances they had to make with other groups and people. you don't understand how they had to be very meticulous about sizing up different types of institutions. so in looking at a congress, instead of just going -- they all hate us. figuring out where and congress are those allies. instead of just looking at a city council. figuring out is there someone on city council. what are the weak spots, and the south was trying to economically develop. do you want to economically develop, son? [laughter] right! that kind of strategy, thinking through and that is what -- the sanitization of the civil rights movement and of martin luther king serves a purpose frankly to defeat instead of

mpower. thank you. >> we are a couple of months removed from a primary election in wisconsin which have the democrats in the state that are campaigning for the run against scott walker pay the guy i supported how would i consider to be a pretty good insight as to the political structure of america today. he said that we have an awful lot of media attention to the horizontal divide between the left and the right. so that's where most of the focus is. the real disparity in america is not the horizontal and it is a vertical in between the well-to-do and the average person or the poor. to what extent does your book cover the economic implications of democracy? >> and so, one of the things i deal with -- let me back up. in 2008, there was an election.

one of the things that we heard after barack obama 's victory was that and then in 2012, was, how racist can america be? [laughter] we elected a black man twice. no we did not! because what that we is, it says we white americans voted overwhelmingly for a black man for president of the united states. but the majority of whites did not vote for barack obama. in fact, the majority of whites have not voted for democratic candidate for president since 1964. with the passage of the civil rights act. when the federal government signed legislation by lyndon johnson, democrat. say that the federal government

would enforce african-american citizenship rights. not since 1964. ouyou had a sizable number of whites who voted for obama. it was obama as ground game, that grassroots, mobilizing, organizing, registering folks to vote, getting out the vote, brought 15 million new voters to the polls. who were overwhelmingly black, hispanic, asian, young and poor. making less than $15,000 a year. republicans looked up and had a scooby-doo moment. [laughter] and they decided that they were going to target the very coalition. each one of them. when you think about for instance, voter id. we often think about it in terms of

african-americans. but we have to have an intersectional analysis there too. how when the naacp, the aclu are talking about indiana. voting laws or voter id laws. and said, race and poverty go hand in hand in indiana. and you are taking these voters out. that is what these laws do. so the polling place, i deal with the polling places. shutting down the polling places. in laminority and poor neighborhoods. what that does, is that for every 10th of a mile, because transportation is expensive. for every 10th of a mile, the black voter turnout rate goes down. .5 percent. in sparta, georgia, and voter

suppression works because it sounds reasonable. sound like a targeted hit. it sounds like a descending or they are doing something that you would expect really responsible, policymakers to do. so they say we have fiscal issues, we've to balance the budget. we have these priorities. and so we are going to consolidate some of our polls so we can be fiscally responsible. in sparta, georgia, what it did was it moved the black polling station 17 miles away. to be able to get 17 miles to vote, that is not just a race issue. it is a class issue. and so, it is woven throughout this book. the way that class plays into

this. it's -- what we want. a democracy that is vibrant. democracy that recognizes all of its citizens. a democracy that isn't afraid of its people. a democracy therefore, that can have vibrant policies coming out of the will of cthe people. so one of the things i deal with for instance, in wisconsin, extreme partisan gerrymandering. ryand we know it extreme, how they republican, group of inrepublicans went into a room with powerful software, mapping the districts to reduce competitive races, but also so that regardless of how many votes they got they would have

the power. what that also does wit gerrymandering, some of the key states has done, is that it has put somewhere between 16 to 26 additional republicans in congress that would not be there except for these partisan maps. and because these are where they have chosen their voters instead of the voters choosing them. it means then that we have policies emanating out of d.c. that are so against what the people want. so think about the affordable care act. remember when the republicans were barreling through? trying to get the affordable care act? one of the first you know, they're applauding, paul ryan, they are applauding and really happy about this. you are seeing polls that say 70 percent of americans want the affordable care act strengthened. how do you reconcile that the u.s. house of representatives leis seeking to gut access to

healthcare? 70 percent of americans wanted strengthened. or -- how do you reconcile that 80 percent of americans did not approve of the tax bill?that transferred $1.5 trillion to the wealthiest. voter suppression is destructive to american democracy. and that is what we have to vote to give folks in power that believe in democracy. because it is not about believing in power. it is about believing in democracy. that is the transformation we are inlooking for in this natio. [applause]

>> for the last 15 or 20 minutes of spring and some questions from booktv viewers. carol will sit down with peter, you will be able to hear the calls in the room there's another question line that we will get to hear as well. let's bring in some questions from booktv. thank you. >> carol anderson's newest book is called one person, no vote. how voter suppression is destroying our democracy. a finalist for the national book award, the long list. in her first book won the national book critics circle award. it is called white rage, the unspoken truth of our racial divide. carol anderson, we've a lot of calls lined up let's begin with a call from new york city. and this is richard in new york city. hi richard. >> hello. thank you for taking my call and thank you very much, doctor

anderson, for your wonderful talk. i wanted to address a couple of points that you were just discussing. which was, specifically, the issues between race and class within and how it affects our democracy. in many cases, it is the money that keeps the incumbents of all parties in power. and that is become, was always been an end unto itself. but in a democracy, it should be the good of the people. and we have not seen that here, since tand i hate to say this myself, since tip o'neill, for god sake! and citizens united made it much worse and i am not sure if your family with democracy in chains. by doctor mclean. and she addresses how this has been put forward over the past 50 years or so.

and i was wondering if you could comment on the mechanisms and illegal alleys -- to push the agenda. >> to push the agenda of money in politics? the biggest lie is that corporations are people. [laughter] [applause]. and therefore, have constitutional rights. and that somehow, limiting corporate donations to politicians, is violating their freedom of speech. the kind of legal gymnastics you have got to make to do to make that seem akplausible, is just -- we've got to get the dark money. i love james mayer or james myers book dark money. we have to get dark money out of politics. there is a lot of work we have

to do to get our democracy back on track. getting rid of dark money, getting rid of thvoter suppression. techniques, opening up the vote to larger shares of our electorate, reducing the barriers to voting. all of that is absolutely essential. to the kind of democracy that we deserve. >> a quick commercial, democracy in chains, and -- have both been covered on booktv you can watch on booktv.org and both of carol anderson 's books have been covered as well. she's the african-american studies chair at emory university on top of that, facebook comments for you, doctor anderson. this is fromlydia. voter ids should be required , we are a constitutional republic.[laughter] >> okay. one of the things that has been happening, and i call it the kind of -- you know, it is a

kind of playing with words domain where it is like, where is the "p". are we a democracy, our way republic? it is garbage. i know how us to put it. it drives us off to the point we need to be. so first, we are a people who vote for hour -- for our people. it gets scratched over, divided, it's a problem for the democracy. secondly, no, voter id -- the reason voter id came to being had to deal with the lie of voter fraud. prior to you know, here voter fraud, voter fraud, that is why i mentioned it. and we wove that throughout because it is still dominant in the nations discourse where we have you know, 50 percent of

americans believe that voter fraud is real! and it is not.what is real, is that for instance, justin levitt, a law professor out of california did a study from 2000 until 2014. and he found that out of 1 billion votes, that there were 31 cases, 31 cases out of 1 billion votes over the span of 15 years. so we looking at about two per year. that is hardly massive rampant. when greg abbott, who was at the time, the secretary of state, in texas and is now governor. was arguing for texas voter id law. he was arguing before judge t ramos that we have massive, rampant voter fraud. he said okay. how many? it is massive!

how many? it is rampant. >> how many? and he said two. and when kris kobach cannot produce massive rampant voter fraud in a court where he's arguing have to have the laws that he wants, because of massive rampant voter fraud. if he cannot produce the evidence? when you've got the voter suppressors unable to produce that it tells you voter id is not needed. it is another obstacle barrier. >> the next call for professor carol anderson is from theodore in maryland. you are on with booktv. >> first i like to say thank you. second the audience to realize, look around, michael anton, hillsdale college, recently wrote an article saying birthright citizenship is unconstitutional and republican governors that if they get enough will have a constant -- if your mother or father they will make it retroactive. if your mother or father are

not born here be careful. look it up. number two, should nonvoting be penalized as is a lack of insurance for a driver? number three, can the professor simply and solely give a distinction right now, between a right and a privilege? thank you. thank you i love you. everything is great, thank you! [laughter] >> okay, you have birthright, manmandated voting, choose one. >> i will go with birthright. the thing with birthright citizenship, that article came out and there is a brilliant scholar, martha jones, has written a book on birthright citizenship. it is brilliant! and she dissected each one of his arguments and just laid it

out! what we do know, and it is what nancy mclean is getting to, that there is this move to have a new institutional convention. and one of the key elements in this constitutional convention is to constrict the electorate. tithose who have access. and so that constriction means for instance, to turn the popular vote the way we popularly vote for our u.s. senators. into having them appointed by the state legislature. which means if you have a gerrymandering legislature it means you have a gerrymandering -- that's why the election in 2018 is also so very important. >> we have a question in the audience. >> first off thank you for coming out. i am alexis, i am from milwaukee. i've been following the news about north dakota and the decision there and the impact

on the native american community. i was wondering if you can speak to different issues of the native american community and in particular, faces when it comes to voting.>> i think the north dakota case is, just -- it epitomizes the difficulties there. so the issue was, north dakota past the voter id law. in order to get the id, you have to have an address. well, on the reservation, they do not have addresses. they use a po box. and the supreme court ruled, then your po box is not enough. and if you do not have an address, oh box -- we've moved to a reserve and then started stripping away the rights that they have.

by making it sound elogical. because again, and i get back to this, voter id is a fraud. we don't have massive rampant voter fraud. [applause] and so by requiring these ids, and you know that there is racially and economically desperate access to ids for a variety of reasons. you're able to call the electorate. and so, that is -- i mean, when i saw that coming through -- yeah. >> let's hear next from claire in mobile, alabama. >> yes, ma'am. thank you so much for your talk. you really have inspired me. i am a white, 64-year-old female that has been fighting this fight since i was a very young child. i saw the horrors in and alabama as i

was brought up in both states. i returned to alabama to rescue my elderly relatives out of duty. that is what most females do. we females still do not have gender equality either. my point being, we got doug jones elected. we worked hard on the ground. we started early down here and were working on the ground again. the thing that i would like to say to all citizens that are listening, you can make a difference. you can make a difference by getting involved and by doing your work. i called t.v. stations, call radio stations, i wrote a 13 page letter today that i'm going to send off to as many people as i can possibly send it to on monday. i mean like the new york the "washington post", citizens must be involved to save our democracy. these are very evil people.

i've witnessed it since i was a child and these things were burned in my brain. i have also been very blessed -- >> ipod as we have to leave it there. any response? >> yes. the engagement of citizens, the people will save the democracy because the people are this democracy. and that is a component we must continue to understand. it is that engagement. we have to understand it is not just voting. it is what we have been seeing after the 2016 election. people calling their representatives, demanding to know how they stand on this issue. or that issue. and saying no, this is what we want. it is people coming to the town halls. holding representatives accountable. that is the engagement is going to make the difference. people driving, you know other folks to the polls. when those polls are shut down

so that we can handle what that distance does. that engagement is how we save this democracy. >> is a pretty young audience but was anyone here involved in the civil rights movement? at all in the 60s? a couple of hands going up. vicky, san diego, you are on the air. >> hello. first of all, i would like to thank you so much, peter. you contribute wonderfully to booktv. and to answer your question, yes, i was involved through the unitarian church in the civil rights movement. in fact, our minister, went down to selma, alabama. i was not involved. i did not go down there but he did. okay. and -- [laughter] i think this has been so -- she is an excellent speaker and very personable and very likable. now here is my fantasy.

all right? that someone like, i will name a name, george soros, needs a multibillion-dollar and he's always looking to do good things. i think it would be wonderful if he would adopt the voter you know -- save our democracy and make that something he would champion. in other words, he could be so responsible for providing transportation and everything that is necessary so that the voter suppression is denied. and maybe -- >> what about private money come into this effort? >> you know, and alabama, one of the key elements was that millions of dollars poured into alabama because all of that grassroots organizing is not cheap.but -- what those folks sending the money in understood was that you had to pay

attention to the local folks and let the local people figure out how to deploy those funds. trying to come in from outside of that state and figure out how to do this was not going to work. and so it was the trust that the people had in the local folks that made the difference in alabama. >> the book is called one person, no vote. how voter suppression is destroying our democracy. professor carol anderson , is the author. thank you for spending time with us. >> here's a look at some authors recently featured on booktv afterwards. best-selling nonfiction books and guest interviewers. journalist beth macey reported on the opioid crisis in america. vice president mike pence daughter charlotte, shared important lessons she learned from her father. and republican senator, ben sass of nebraska argued that the country lacks unity and offered dawson how to prepare it. in the coming weeks on "after words" -- will argue the case against open borders.

fox news host tucker carlson will offer his thoughts on elitism in america. and this weekend pulitzer prize-winning reporter josc antonio vargas discusses his life as an immigrant. >> people of color and white people both, both, i do think both have a role to play. to actually engage in any sort of meaningful conversation about this.you know, we live in a culture where we just cancel people out. i cannot tell you how many times i've been canceled because i'm not radical enough. i am not tying myself to offense. my favorite is, i am too nice to white people. i don't even know what that means! because when i got fox news -- and when white people -- i did not read reviews of white people. i did not know how many pieces

were written about it. and most of the reviews, especially people of color, was like, josc is too easy on these people. and i will never forget that. because remember, when the film aired, it aired one month after donald trump announced he was running for president. i started telling all of my political reporter friends that he was going to win. and everyone thought i was nuts. when really, what people of color may think white people 101 is really where we are. we are in white people 101. that is what we are living through. >> what do you mean, white people 101? >> the conversation about race just started! >> "after words" is sunday 1:00 p.m. and sunday 9 pm eastern and pacific on booktv on c-span2. all previous "after words" are available online at booktv.org. c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's

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