ABHM Book Club: One Person, No Vote by Carol Anderson with Tonya Bolden
We are pleased to announce ABHM’s November Book of the Month: One Person, No Vote by Carol Anderson with Tonya Bolden. We invite you to join us for a virtual discussion on Zoom.
About the Book
In One Person, No Vote, historian Carol Anderson exposes how modern voter suppression has evolved to undermine American democracy in the years following the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision. That ruling struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, opening the door for states to enact restrictive voting laws under the guise of election integrity.
Anderson traces how measures such as strict photo ID laws, aggressive voter roll purges, gerrymandering, and polling place closures have become the new tools of disenfranchisement—particularly targeting Black, Brown, and young voters. By presenting these tactics as neutral or necessary safeguards, lawmakers have effectively continued the long American tradition of suppressing minority voices at the ballot box.
Blending rigorous historical analysis with contemporary case studies, Anderson reveals the throughline connecting Jim Crow–era restrictions to today’s legislative maneuvers. One Person, No Vote is both a searing indictment of systemic voter suppression and a call to recognize how the erosion of voting rights threatens the foundation of representative democracy in the United States.
About the Author
Carol Anderson, Ph.D., is an acclaimed historian, author, and public intellectual whose work examines the deep roots and ongoing realities of racial inequality in the United States. She is the Charles Howard Candler Professor and Chair of African American Studies at Emory University, where her research and teaching focus on African American history, civil rights, and the struggle for human rights. A recipient of fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Humanities Center, Anderson has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Society of American Historians, and the American Philosophical Society.
Her acclaimed books—White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy, longlisted for the National Book Award; Eyes Off the Prize; and Bourgeois Radicals—trace how policies and institutions have worked to suppress Black progress and democratic participation. Through her scholarship and public commentary, Anderson has become a leading voice on the intersection of race, power, and democracy in America. She earned her Ph.D. in history from The Ohio State University in 1995.