Both white and African American residents nationally agree that race relations in the United States have deteriorated during the past year. But, the consensus ends there. This survey of Americans illustrates the contrast in opinions along racial lines about the opportunities available today for African Americans. CONT. PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll Read more »
Why a key to the 2016 Southern vote lies centuries ago on another continent
… Democratic candidates, who used to campaign aggressively in the heavily Scots-Irish rural communities of Appalachia, have shifted their attention to liberal whites and ethnic minorities, as Barack Obama did in 2008 and 2012. Now, as she builds her 2016 campaign, Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton appears to be focusing […] Read more »
Hillary Clinton Relying on Southern Primaries to Fend Off Rivals
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign is methodically building a political firewall across the South in hopes of effectively locking up the Democratic nomination in March regardless of any early setbacks in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. … Mrs. Clinton’s Southern strategy shows in sharp relief the imprint […] Read more »
How Jimmy Carter championed civil rights — and Ronald Reagan didn’t
… Carter is largely remembered as a feckless leader; even his own party tends to ignore his time in the White House. But he had a strong record on civil rights, and his work to advance the cause would have been far more consequential if his successor, Ronald Reagan, had […] Read more »
Book Revew: ‘Give Us the Ballot,’ by Ari Berman
… “The revolution of 1965 spawned an equally committed group of counterrevolutionaries,” Berman writes in “Give Us the Ballot.” “Since the V.R.A.’s passage, they have waged a decades-long campaign to restrict voting rights.” Berman argues that these counterrevolutionaries have “in recent years, controlled a majority on the Supreme Court” and […] Read more »
Nine Years Ago, Republicans Favored Voting Rights. What Happened?
On July 20, 2006, the United States Senate voted to renew the Voting Rights Act for 25 more years. The vote was unanimous, 98 to 0. That followed an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives, which passed it by a vote of 390 to 33. President George Bush […] Read more »