"Who Gets to Vote?" Session 1: Allan J. Lichtman's "The Embattled Vote in America"
Channel: Archives NOLAlibrary
Date: 2021-03-19

In this first session, we discuss Allan J. Lichtman's "The Embattled Vote in America: From the Founding to the Present". From the book: "Americans have fought and died for the right to vote. Yet the world’s oldest continuously operating democracy guarantees no one, not even its citizens, the right to elect its leaders. An award-winning historian who has testified in more than ninety voting rights cases, Allan Lichtman gives us the deep history behind today’s headlines and shows that calls of voter fraud, political gerrymandering and outrageous attempts at voter suppression are nothing new. The players and the tactics have changed—we don’t outright ban people from voting anymore—but the battle and the stakes remain just as high." 

"Who Gets to Vote?" is a reading and discussion series that engages the citizens of New Orleans and Louisiana to have conversations on the history of voting and efforts to suppress the vote in the United States. Hosted by the City Archives at New Orleans Public Library, scholar facilitator Doctor Lo Faber leads sessions meant to encourage critical thinking and spark dialogue around issues and themes supported by the books. Visit our program page for discussion guides and more: http://archives.nolalibrary.org/~nopl/spec/WhoGetsToVote.htm 

This program is made possible by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the Friends of New Orleans Public Library, and is a part of the “Why it Matters: Civic and Electoral Participation” initiative, administered by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 

-City Archives & Special Collections, New Orleans Public Library: http://archives.nolalibrary.org 
-Doctor Lo Faber, Scholar: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691166896/building-the-land-of-dreams and Musician: https://www.youtube.com/c/DoctorLoFaber/featured 
-Friends of the New Orleans Public Library: https://friendsnola.org/ 
-Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities: https://www.leh.org/grants/apply-now/who-gets-to-vote/