by Russell Freedman
Holiday House. 2014
ISBN: 9780824329219
Grades 9 thru 12
To write this review, I borrowed a copy of this book from my local public library.
While campaigning in 2007 for the presidency, Barack Obama
spoke at a ceremony commemorating the forty-second anniversary of the march
from Selma to Montgomery. Obama
told his audience, It is because they marched that I stand here before you
today.
In, Because they Marched: the people’s campaign for voting
rights that changed America, nonfiction writer extraordinaire, Russell Freedman
documents events that led up to that historic march to Montgomery, Alabama and
how the U.S. Congress, including Southern lawmakers, would then approve the
Voting Rights Act of 1965. Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia said, We can’t deny
the Negroes a basic constitutional right to vote.
Though the protesters practiced nonviolence, local and state
law officials met them with acts of violence. Impeccably researched and packed
with historic black & white photographs, Because they Marched helps us
remember the courage of the Civil Rights activists who risked their lives to
ensure all U.S. citizens, especially minorities or the poor, have the right to
vote.
The right to vote continues to be challenged and the meaning of
American democracy remains a topic of debate and struggle. It will be in the
news as we near another presidential election in 2016, because key provisions
of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, was not upheld by the Supreme Court in 2013. The
controversial 5-4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder released nine states,
mostly in the South, from the requirement that they must seek advance federal
approval before making any change in their election laws. Now states can make it harder for minority
voters, older people, students, legal immigrants, and the poor of all races to
register and vote.
Pair this book with March: Book One by John Lewis, Freedom Summer by Susan Goldman Rubin, and Separate is Never Equal by Duncan Tonatiuh
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