This is fresh air, I'm Terry Gross.

My guest Eric Holder became the first African American attorney general in 2009 when he was

appointed by the first African American president Barack Obama.

One of Holder's priorities as AG was voting rights, but during his tenure in 2013 the Supreme

Court gutted key parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the case Shelby County versus Holder.

Shelby County, Alabama, had challenged the provision of the Voting Rights Act that required

pre-clearance, which meant states like Alabama, with the history of discriminating against

black voters, needed to receive clearance from the Justice Department before enacting

any new voting laws.

The Shelby decision, striking down that provision, opened the door to a slew of voting restrictions.

Walter Holder stepped down as Attorney General in 2015, voting rights and election fairness

remained a top priority.

He founded the National Democratic Redistricting Committee with the goal of reforming how state

legislative maps are drawn to ensure their fair, not partisan, and ending the practice of

gerrymandering.

In his new book, Holder asks what he describes as an existential question.

How do we save democracy before it's too late?

The book, co-written with Sam Coppelman, is called Our Unfinished March, The Violent Past

and Imparalled Future of the Vote.

Eric Holder, welcome to Fresh Air.

I want to start in a similar way your book does.

Take us back to when you were, I think you were 12, watching you ports on the March on

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