What's happened to Voting Rights in America since the passage of the Voting Rights Act 50 years ago?

Ari Burman will join us to talk about Give Us the Ballot, the modern struggle for Voting Rights in America.

People know about Selma, they know about the marches, they know what led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

But then the question is, what happened 50 years after that?

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This is Inside the New York Times Booker View, I'm Pamela Paul.

Ari Burman is here to talk about his new book, Give Us the Ballot, the modern struggle for Voting Rights in America. Welcome, Ari.

Thank you, Pamela.

So I think there's a perception that voting rights are a thing of the past.

Is that one of the things that you wanted to address with this book, that misperception?

Yeah, absolutely. So much of the civil rights history ends in 1965.

People know about Selma, they know about the marches, they know what led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

But then the question is, what happened 50 years after that?

And that was really the question I wanted to answer.

I wanted to go beyond the standard accounts of the civil rights movement and show both that the civil rights movement didn't end in 1965.

And also debates over voting rights didn't end in 1965 either, that there was this fascinating 50 year period that really hadn't been explored.

Right, you take this all the way up to 2014 and new developments with the last year.

I try to take it up as much to the present as possible while realizing that present circumstances had changed.

But yeah, I really wanted to start my book where most accounts of the civil rights movement end.

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