[ad_1]
PHILADELPHIA – Since her book Lead From the Outside was released last month, Stacey Abrams has appeared in places worthy of a woman whose tiny defeat in the 2018 Georgia Governor's race has turned her into a national political star.
On "Morning Joe", she dressed up questions about a possible presidential race. On "The Late Show," Stephen Colbert surprised her by reading one of the love novels that she published under a pseudonym.
But last Friday, Mrs. Abrams went to a much quieter place: the Library Company of Philadelphia, founded in 1731 by Ben Franklin, who claims to be the oldest cultural institution in the United States.
It was not a stop on Mrs. Abrams' reading tour. Instead, she was there to participate in an intimate two-hour conversation on the history of electoral repression with four prominent academics. It will be published next year by the University of Georgia Press as part of a new series called History in the Headlines, which aims to use historical expertise to address the most controversial issues today. .
The Trump era has been a red warning moment for many historians who have mobilized themselves in the classroom, on opinion pages and on social media to fight against what is happening. they regard as an erosion of democratic norms and an attack on the truth itself.
For the conversation, the moderator, Jim Downs, a professor at Connecticut College, had recruited what he called a "dream team": Carol Anderson, the author of "One person, no vote"; Heather Cox Richardson, Republican Party History Expert; Heather Ann Thompson, the author of a story of the Attica prison revolt, Pulitzer Prize laureate; and Kevin Kruse, who became famous for his epic threads of Twitter strike the questionable historical claims of experts and politicians.
Before the event, they seemed to be galvanized at the thought of talking to someone who, as Mr Kruse said, had talent.
"When the email was sent to announce his arrival, I thought …," said Dr. Anderson, a professor at Emory University, holding his heart. A few minutes later, Ms. Abrams approached.
"I just thank you for what you do," said Dr. Anderson, introducing himself. "You just bring it, whatever the forum. You to bring he."
When asked why she wanted to be absent from her public time to participate, Ms. Abrams – a Democrat who described her loss as "entirely attributable to the repression of voters" – said that she welcomed the context that historians have related to the problem of his signature.
"I have some living history for some of these things," said Abrams, who, had she defeated, would have been the first black woman to be elected governor of any state. But most of all, she said, "I'm here to listen."
The Library Company's decor is an old school patrician (think of old American furniture and oil portraits of white dead-guys), but in recent years it has highlighted its wealth of life. African-American history. Prior to the demonstration, library staff had exposed some elements of the fifteenth amendment, which gave black men the right to vote in 1870.
After the arrival of the group, the archival documents were removed from the table and replaced by a bowl of Philly pretzels. Mr. Downs started on a (relatively) light note, asking participants to keep their first memories of voting.
Dr Kruse, who teaches at Princeton, has been remembered to have voted for Gerald Ford in a preschool election, mainly because, like his father, Ford was playing golf. Dr. Richardson left a sad academic memory of not having taken the trouble to vote in the 1980 presidential election.
Ms. Abrams, 45, recalled the same election, and what she said is the only "physical altercation" that she had at school, with a classmate who qualified Jimmy Carter of Communist.
"I had my first fight, Democrat versus Republican, in second year," she said. She paused. "I won."
The nearly two-hour conversation, which was not open to the public, oscillated between the past and the present. For the group, the decision of the Supreme Court in 2013 Shelby County c. Holder, which had invalidated provisions of the voting rights law and released nine states, mainly in the south of the country, from federal election monitoring, pointed to the reduction of political rights of African Americans after the reconstruction.
What is different about the suppression of voters today, they agreed, is that it has been accomplished by bureaucratic maneuvers that make it more difficult to see.
There has been talk of the battle over the so-called motorized voters law of 1993, which has resulted in more and more claims by Republicans of widespread election fraud. After 1993, Republicans began to assert that Democrats "only win because there are illegitimate voters," said Dr. Richardson, a teacher at Boston College.
Dr. Kruse referred to the rise of "color-blind conservatism" and took out his phone to check a quote from Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who, during the hearings in Shelby, called for the extension of the law on voting rights "a perpetuation of the right to race. "
"Thus, the law on voting rights does not concern equality, it aims to give African Americans an unfair advantage," he said. "What is a weird reading of history."
Some of the questions seemed to be a collection of facts for future stories. Mr. Downs asked Ms. Abrams how she made the decision to deliver her fiery speech, 10 days after the elections in Georgia, announcing that she ending his campaign but, noticeably, not conceding.
She added that the repression of the voters was all too often favored by the "complicity" of the political candidates, including the losers.
"One of the reasons the suppression of voters is working is that we have created this culture that says you do not contest the election result, unless the act is so egregious that it is absolutely clear. at first glance, "she said. (Fair Fight Action, an allied group with Ms. Abrams, has filed a federal lawsuit to challenge election procedures in Georgia and to accuse her opponent, Brian Kemp, who, as Georgian secretary of state, oversaw the elections in Georgia. systematically protect poor and minority voters.)
Scholars have proposed corrections to some popular narratives, beginning with the argument often made by Abrams' critics that Richard Nixon graciously conceded the 1960 presidential election, for the sake of the country, rather than to challenge the alleged fraudulent votes of John F. Kennedy.
At least that's how Mr. Nixon told the story in his book "Six Crises," Kruse said. But in fact, he noted, the Republican party had started challenges in 11 states, before dropping them.
Towards the end of the conversation, when Mr. Downs invited the small group of observers to ask questions, one person referred to what she called the "tacit" political consensus in the room, citing the counter-argument that focused on electoral repression more elected democrats.
Dr. Thompson, who teaches at the University of Michigan, has warned against the "fetishization" of the Democratic Party. "At every stage of this historic trajectory, the Democrats" – and not just the Dixiecrates – "have repeatedly shown a keen interest in depriving poor black urban voters of their rights," she said.
Ms. Abrams said that she had appeared in a Fair Fight Action commercial airing in Georgia during the Super Bowl alongside a Republican county commissioner. The suppression of voters, she said, "can eviscerate democracy for everyone."
If there was a palpable admiration in the room for Mrs. Abrams, she would send her away immediately. The politicians, she told the group, "need your help."
"We repeat the same myths until they sound like a truth," she said. "Where I think historians can help preserve and restore democracy, is we remember how we got it."
[ad_2]
Source link