Voting Hopes or Fears?

Reeves

ISBN 10: 0195101626 / ISBN 13: 9780195101621

Published by Oxford University Press Inc, US, 1997

About this Item

Thirty years after the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, whites remain resistant to the election of blacks to public office. This widespread resistance, Keith Reeves illustrates, can be explained in large part by election campaign appeals to whites' racial fears and sentiments. Through innovative experimental srudies, Voting Hopes or Fears? provides fresh and startling empirical evidence that the issue of race still pervades the consciousness of American society and prevents blacks from winning elections in districts where whites comprise a majority of the electorate.

Seller Inventory # LU-9780195101621

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Voting Hopes or Fears?
• Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc, US
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195101626
• ISBN 13: 9780195101621
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 254 grams

About this title

Synopsis

When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act, he explained that it flowed from "a clear and simple wrong." But a generation later, whites still remain resistant to the election of blacks to public office. That widespread resistance, Keith Reeves illustrates, can be explained in large part by election campaign appeals to whites' racial fears and sentiments. Based on empirical research examining white voters' attitudes towards black candidates and racial framing of campaign news coverage, Voting Hopes or Fears? explosively documents that racial discrimination against black candidates is contemporary, specific, and identifiable. Reeves concludes by outlining possible remedies such as modified at-large voting systems and by defending the practice of race-conscious legislative districting, now under attack by the Supreme Court.

Marshaling startling evidence of voting discrimination against black candidates on account of race, and featuring a Foreword by The Honorable A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., Chief Justice Emeritus of the US Court of Appeals, Voting Hopes or Fears? will be mandatory reading for political and social scientists, scholars of racism and African-American Studies, civil rights litigators, journalists, black lawmakers and office-seekers, and general readers interested in the subject of race and politics in American society.

About the Author

Keith Reeves is Assistant Professor of Public Policy in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvrad University. A former Henry Luce Scholar, he graduated from Swarthmore College, attened Oxford University, and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He was an expert witness in Hays v. Louisiana III, a Federal court challenge to the creation of Louisiana's 4th majority-black Congressional District.