Black Ballots, Black Protest

Black Ballots, Black Protest

Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944-1964, by Steven F. Lawson, New York: Columbia University Press, 474 pp.

Strategies for Freedom: The Changing Patterns of Black Protest, by Bayard Rustin. Columbia University Press. 82 pp.

Jimmy Carter was able to recapture the South for the Democrats because he was the overwhelming favorite of the black voters. Quite, probably they also made the difference between victory and defeat in some key northern states. Carter, then, may very well be the first American president who owes his election to blacks, and this marks the end of an era in American history. The appearance of the two books under consideration here signify an equivalent symbol. The conventional h...