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S1 E10 – Voting Blocked
Democracy in Danger
English - September 22, 2020 16:48 - 30 minutes - 69.3 MBSociety & Culture News Politics democracy election history illiberalism media news politics unitedstates world Homepage Download Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
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In 1890, Mississippi adopted a new constitution that offered a blueprint for Jim Crow. It all but banned African Americans from voting, erecting a charade of roadblocks: poll taxes, literacy tests and other targeted assaults on the franchise. As historian Carol Anderson explains, such laws blocked Black citizens from polling booths for decades. And today, she says — as the core safeguards of the Voting Rights Act unravel — Americans keep risking their lives to protect the kernel of democracy: their ballots.