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Our Unfinished March: The Violent Past and Imperiled Future of the Vote-A History, a Crisis, a Plan
A brutal, bloody, and at times hopeful history of the vote; a primer on the opponents fighting to take it away; and a playbook for how we can save our democracy before it's too late--from the former U.S. Attorney General on the front lines of this fight
Voting is our most important right as Americans--"the right that protects all the others," as Lyndon Johnson famously said when he signed the Voting Rights Act--but it's also the one most violently contested throughout U.S. history. Since the gutting of the act in the landmark Shelby County v. Holder case in 2013, many states have passed laws restricting the vote. After the 2020 election, President Trump's effort to overturn the vote has evolved into a slow-motion coup, with many Republicans launching an all-out assault on our democracy. The vote seems to be in unprecedented peril.
But the peril is not at all unprecedented. America is a fragile democracy, Eric Holder argues, whose citizens have only had unfettered access to the ballot since the 1960s. He takes readers through three dramatic stories of how the vote was won: first by white men, through violence and insurrection; then by white women, through protests and mass imprisonments; and finally by African Americans, in the face of lynchings and terrorism. Next, he dives into how the vote has been stripped away since Shelby--a case in which Holder was one of the parties. He ends with visionary chapters on how we can reverse this tide of voter suppression and become a true democracy where every voice is heard and every vote is counted.
Full of surprising history, intensive analysis, and actionable plans for the future, this is a powerful primer on our most urgent political struggle from one of the country's leading advocates.
Voting is our most important right as Americans--"the right that protects all the others," as Lyndon Johnson famously said when he signed the Voting Rights Act--but it's also the one most violently contested throughout U.S. history. Since the gutting of the act in the landmark Shelby County v. Holder case in 2013, many states have passed laws restricting the vote. After the 2020 election, President Trump's effort to overturn the vote has evolved into a slow-motion coup, with many Republicans launching an all-out assault on our democracy. The vote seems to be in unprecedented peril.
But the peril is not at all unprecedented. America is a fragile democracy, Eric Holder argues, whose citizens have only had unfettered access to the ballot since the 1960s. He takes readers through three dramatic stories of how the vote was won: first by white men, through violence and insurrection; then by white women, through protests and mass imprisonments; and finally by African Americans, in the face of lynchings and terrorism. Next, he dives into how the vote has been stripped away since Shelby--a case in which Holder was one of the parties. He ends with visionary chapters on how we can reverse this tide of voter suppression and become a true democracy where every voice is heard and every vote is counted.
Full of surprising history, intensive analysis, and actionable plans for the future, this is a powerful primer on our most urgent political struggle from one of the country's leading advocates.
304 pages, Paperback
Published June 6, 2023
74 people are currently reading
3953 people want to read
About the author
Eric Holder
3 books27 followersEric Holder is an American attorney who served as the 82nd Attorney General of the United States during the Obama administration from 2009 to 2015. He was the first African American to hold the position of U.S. Attorney General.
Librarians note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Librarians note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
June 1, 2022
We would all do well to remember that the United States was not founded as a democracy, not by any stretch of the imagination. It’s not just that African Americans, Native Americans, and women were denied the vote; white males even discriminated against each other, denying the franchise to those without the necessary property qualifications. What all this amounted to is that, when George Washington first ran for president, only one out of every 16 people, or 6 percent of the entire population, could vote. Rich white men, in other words, were the only ones with political or economic power, meaning that, essentially, the founders threw off monarchy only to replace it with an aristocracy steeped in misogyny and white supremacy.
The founders didn’t get everything wrong, though. They deserve credit for creating the first secular constitution the world had ever seen, and the encoding of the separation of church and state into the Constitution is probably the greatest gift they gave us. Further, the Declaration enshrined the ideals that, if they were not possible to live by at the time, would provide the foundation for continual moral improvement.
So it’s important to avoid adopting extreme positions, either that the country is perfect and faultless or that it is inherently evil and unjust (one of the left’s biggest mistakes is ceding over patriotism to the right). It is a mix of both the good and the ugly, and we must take an honest look at our past to chart a better future. (For the best single-volume history of the US that takes this middle-ground approach, check out Jill Lepore’s masterpiece of a book, These Truths: A History of the US.)
Of course, there’s no question that the founders could have made it a lot easier for us. They could have replaced the phrase “all men are created equal” with “all men and women of any race or color are created equal.” But they didn’t—probably because they knew no one at the time would actually believe it—with the result that rampant discrimination would continue to take place.
US history is certainly a history full of contradictions. The country was founded on the phrase “all men are created equal” and yet simultaneously condoned slavery. It fought against the injustice of “taxation without representation” and then went on to tax half the population (women) without granting them the vote until 1920 (1920!!). Literally every bit of moral progress that has been made in this country has come at the cost of intense struggle, sacrifice, bloodshed, and resistance from bigots, with a lesson we should all remember: Just because progress is made, doesn’t mean that it can’t be taken away.
And that’s why this book is important. As Holder reminds us, the moral arc does not necessarily and automatically bend towards justice—we have to fight for it. The right to vote—the most obvious and basic right imaginable in a democracy (in this case a representative democracy)— has always been under attack from the individuals that stand to benefit from its suppression. So when Republicans employ tactics to suppress the vote in response to imaginary “voter fraud” issues—and clearly benefit electorally from doing so—you’d have to be pretty naive to not recognize what’s really going on. (Also note that an independent study from The Brennan Center, a nonpartisan law and policy institute, calculated that, statistically, you have a greater chance of being struck by lightning than committing voter fraud. Voter fraud is exceedingly rare, and if it ever does happen, it’s not swinging any elections, ever. High voter turnout favors Democrats because—in math even the most hard-headed conspiracy theorist could understand—more of the population identifies as Democrat or Democratic-leaning than Republican.)
This explains why, in the aftermath of the midterm elections during the Obama presidency, Republicans introduced almost 200 bills across 41 states making it harder to vote. What you have is a party that knows it can’t win when everyone votes, and so its top priority is voter suppression. But it can’t come out and say this, and so it has to introduce these bills under the guise of protection against “voter fraud.” And it works, because people believe it.
Holder does a phenomenal job of explaining all of this. In the first part of the book, he outlines the history of vote suppression and how African Americans and women eventually won the vote. In the second part, he describes the current conservative strategy to suppress minority voting (which benefits Republicans) through discriminatory state laws and to skew representation through the most anti-democratic process imaginable: gerrymandering.
Holder reminds us that the Republican attack on the vote, and thus on democracy, is not surprising. Their policies no longer match the needs and preferences of most of the population, and so vote suppression and gerrymandering are literally the only means by which they can think to hold onto power. What is surprising is that we’re allowing it to happen.
And that brings us to the final part of the book, where Holder outlines the plan to stop the madness and restore our democracy before irreparable damage is done. In summary, here’s what Holder suggests we do to fix our democracy.
First and foremost, we should make it easier to vote with automatic voter registration, early voting, free voter IDs, and making election day a national holiday. What’s interesting is that automatic voter registration (AVR) would also work to prevent voter fraud, so if Republicans really cared about that, they should support AVR. Big surprise—they don’t.
We should recognize that while making voting easier does benefit Democrats, we should want to do this even if it did the opposite. If we really want a democracy, we have to respect the wishes of the majority, and if the majority wants Republican policies enacted, that is what should happen (as Holder acknowledges). Otherwise, you have an oligarchy, and even if you favor the current policies now, this won’t always be the case. It’s a dangerous scenario when a country has no means to remove dangerous or corrupt leaders, and without the vote, it becomes near impossible to do so.
Second, we need to fix Congress. The Senate is, first of all, in direct violation of the one-person one-vote ideal. The population of Wyoming, for example, is about 600,000. The population of California is almost 40 million. Yet both states get two senators. Something doesn’t seem right about that, and, in fact, we probably don’t need the Senate at all. We should keep in mind what Todd Tucker from the Roosevelt Institute said:
“Roughly half of the world’s countries, including highly economically successful nations, such as Denmark, Iceland, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, and Sweden, have only one chamber—elected generally on a one-person, one-vote basis. Others—including the UK, Canada, and Germany—have unelected second chambers that are much weaker than the U.S. Senate and perform functions that in relative terms appear mostly advisory….only the second chambers of Brazil, Argentina, and Russia are less evenly represented than the United States”
This is not great company to be in. And it’s even worse than that; with the filibuster, most bills require a supermajority to pass, with the unsurprising result that Congress never gets anything valuable accomplished. The obvious solution: at the least, eliminate the filibuster (which was never part of the Constitution).
The argument for the filibuster was never a good one anyway. As Holder writes:
“If Democrats eliminate the filibuster; expand access to the franchise; provide statehood to Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico; and still manage to lose control of the presidency and Congress to Republicans, then that is at least in part a reflection of the will of the people—and Republicans should be allowed to enact their agenda, without the added burden of needing a supermajority in the Senate. Because that’s how democracy works. And if voters don’t like what the party in power does, then they can show up in the polls, vote them out, and start passing legislation with a Senate majority of their own.”
We know the Senate is largely unrepresentative of the population, as this is built into the Constitution. But the House of Representatives was never supposed to be this way. Thanks to gerrymandering (or partisan redistricting), however, the House is not representative either. As Holder writes:
“In 2012, after that gerrymandering, Democrats won 1.4 million more votes than Republicans in races for the U.S. House of Representatives, but Republicans engineered a thirty-three seat majority.”
Again, we have to decide: do we want a democracy or not? Because if we continue to allow partisan redistricting (rather than nonpartisan commissions carrying out the duty), then we willingly allow our politicians to pick their voters rather than the other way around. Between voter suppression, unequal representation in the Senate, and gerrymandering in the House, Congress unequivocally does not represent the interests of the majority, and it’s not even close. We need to make voting easier and end the filibuster and gerrymandering. There are simply no compelling arguments not to (other than short-term partisan victories at the expense of the long-term viability of our democracy).
Holder’s final two recommendations include eliminating the Electoral College (which can allow a candidate to win the presidency without winning the popular vote) and expanding the size of the Supreme Court while eliminating lifetime appointments. All good ideas. Whether they will ever actually happen is another story.
I have to say that, in a book on voting, I’m surprised that ranked-choice voting was not mentioned once. Without ranked-choice voting, people often cannot vote for their preferred candidate without feeling like they’re voting against their own party. This surely compels many people—faced with a vote between two lackluster candidates—to skip out on election day entirely. Ranked-choice voting eliminates this issue, allowing people to vote for whoever they want without throwing out their vote on longshot candidates. In a book that wants to encourage high voter turnout, this is a missed opportunity for the advocacy of an important policy.
Holder also mentions that one of the advantages of eliminating the Electoral College is that candidates would have to appeal to a larger group of people, forcing them to adopt less extreme positions. Ranked-choice voting would have a similar effect, and so is every bit as important in tempering polarization.
----
Overall, if you stop to think about it, the US is a pretty poor excuse for a democracy. Our government simply does not represent the majority. The Senate over-represents smaller states by a massive margin; the House (along with state legislatures), through gerrymandering, over-represents Republican voters; the Electoral College often grants the presidency to the candidate that lost the popular vote; and the Supreme Court consists of nine justices that are appointed for life by whatever president happens to be in office when a replacement is needed, leading, in some cases, to laws being gutted by unelected partisan judges. If you don’t see all this as a problem, and one predominantly coming from the right, then you’re not paying very close attention—or else democracy is not what you’re really after.
The founders didn’t get everything wrong, though. They deserve credit for creating the first secular constitution the world had ever seen, and the encoding of the separation of church and state into the Constitution is probably the greatest gift they gave us. Further, the Declaration enshrined the ideals that, if they were not possible to live by at the time, would provide the foundation for continual moral improvement.
So it’s important to avoid adopting extreme positions, either that the country is perfect and faultless or that it is inherently evil and unjust (one of the left’s biggest mistakes is ceding over patriotism to the right). It is a mix of both the good and the ugly, and we must take an honest look at our past to chart a better future. (For the best single-volume history of the US that takes this middle-ground approach, check out Jill Lepore’s masterpiece of a book, These Truths: A History of the US.)
Of course, there’s no question that the founders could have made it a lot easier for us. They could have replaced the phrase “all men are created equal” with “all men and women of any race or color are created equal.” But they didn’t—probably because they knew no one at the time would actually believe it—with the result that rampant discrimination would continue to take place.
US history is certainly a history full of contradictions. The country was founded on the phrase “all men are created equal” and yet simultaneously condoned slavery. It fought against the injustice of “taxation without representation” and then went on to tax half the population (women) without granting them the vote until 1920 (1920!!). Literally every bit of moral progress that has been made in this country has come at the cost of intense struggle, sacrifice, bloodshed, and resistance from bigots, with a lesson we should all remember: Just because progress is made, doesn’t mean that it can’t be taken away.
And that’s why this book is important. As Holder reminds us, the moral arc does not necessarily and automatically bend towards justice—we have to fight for it. The right to vote—the most obvious and basic right imaginable in a democracy (in this case a representative democracy)— has always been under attack from the individuals that stand to benefit from its suppression. So when Republicans employ tactics to suppress the vote in response to imaginary “voter fraud” issues—and clearly benefit electorally from doing so—you’d have to be pretty naive to not recognize what’s really going on. (Also note that an independent study from The Brennan Center, a nonpartisan law and policy institute, calculated that, statistically, you have a greater chance of being struck by lightning than committing voter fraud. Voter fraud is exceedingly rare, and if it ever does happen, it’s not swinging any elections, ever. High voter turnout favors Democrats because—in math even the most hard-headed conspiracy theorist could understand—more of the population identifies as Democrat or Democratic-leaning than Republican.)
This explains why, in the aftermath of the midterm elections during the Obama presidency, Republicans introduced almost 200 bills across 41 states making it harder to vote. What you have is a party that knows it can’t win when everyone votes, and so its top priority is voter suppression. But it can’t come out and say this, and so it has to introduce these bills under the guise of protection against “voter fraud.” And it works, because people believe it.
Holder does a phenomenal job of explaining all of this. In the first part of the book, he outlines the history of vote suppression and how African Americans and women eventually won the vote. In the second part, he describes the current conservative strategy to suppress minority voting (which benefits Republicans) through discriminatory state laws and to skew representation through the most anti-democratic process imaginable: gerrymandering.
Holder reminds us that the Republican attack on the vote, and thus on democracy, is not surprising. Their policies no longer match the needs and preferences of most of the population, and so vote suppression and gerrymandering are literally the only means by which they can think to hold onto power. What is surprising is that we’re allowing it to happen.
And that brings us to the final part of the book, where Holder outlines the plan to stop the madness and restore our democracy before irreparable damage is done. In summary, here’s what Holder suggests we do to fix our democracy.
First and foremost, we should make it easier to vote with automatic voter registration, early voting, free voter IDs, and making election day a national holiday. What’s interesting is that automatic voter registration (AVR) would also work to prevent voter fraud, so if Republicans really cared about that, they should support AVR. Big surprise—they don’t.
We should recognize that while making voting easier does benefit Democrats, we should want to do this even if it did the opposite. If we really want a democracy, we have to respect the wishes of the majority, and if the majority wants Republican policies enacted, that is what should happen (as Holder acknowledges). Otherwise, you have an oligarchy, and even if you favor the current policies now, this won’t always be the case. It’s a dangerous scenario when a country has no means to remove dangerous or corrupt leaders, and without the vote, it becomes near impossible to do so.
Second, we need to fix Congress. The Senate is, first of all, in direct violation of the one-person one-vote ideal. The population of Wyoming, for example, is about 600,000. The population of California is almost 40 million. Yet both states get two senators. Something doesn’t seem right about that, and, in fact, we probably don’t need the Senate at all. We should keep in mind what Todd Tucker from the Roosevelt Institute said:
“Roughly half of the world’s countries, including highly economically successful nations, such as Denmark, Iceland, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, and Sweden, have only one chamber—elected generally on a one-person, one-vote basis. Others—including the UK, Canada, and Germany—have unelected second chambers that are much weaker than the U.S. Senate and perform functions that in relative terms appear mostly advisory….only the second chambers of Brazil, Argentina, and Russia are less evenly represented than the United States”
This is not great company to be in. And it’s even worse than that; with the filibuster, most bills require a supermajority to pass, with the unsurprising result that Congress never gets anything valuable accomplished. The obvious solution: at the least, eliminate the filibuster (which was never part of the Constitution).
The argument for the filibuster was never a good one anyway. As Holder writes:
“If Democrats eliminate the filibuster; expand access to the franchise; provide statehood to Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico; and still manage to lose control of the presidency and Congress to Republicans, then that is at least in part a reflection of the will of the people—and Republicans should be allowed to enact their agenda, without the added burden of needing a supermajority in the Senate. Because that’s how democracy works. And if voters don’t like what the party in power does, then they can show up in the polls, vote them out, and start passing legislation with a Senate majority of their own.”
We know the Senate is largely unrepresentative of the population, as this is built into the Constitution. But the House of Representatives was never supposed to be this way. Thanks to gerrymandering (or partisan redistricting), however, the House is not representative either. As Holder writes:
“In 2012, after that gerrymandering, Democrats won 1.4 million more votes than Republicans in races for the U.S. House of Representatives, but Republicans engineered a thirty-three seat majority.”
Again, we have to decide: do we want a democracy or not? Because if we continue to allow partisan redistricting (rather than nonpartisan commissions carrying out the duty), then we willingly allow our politicians to pick their voters rather than the other way around. Between voter suppression, unequal representation in the Senate, and gerrymandering in the House, Congress unequivocally does not represent the interests of the majority, and it’s not even close. We need to make voting easier and end the filibuster and gerrymandering. There are simply no compelling arguments not to (other than short-term partisan victories at the expense of the long-term viability of our democracy).
Holder’s final two recommendations include eliminating the Electoral College (which can allow a candidate to win the presidency without winning the popular vote) and expanding the size of the Supreme Court while eliminating lifetime appointments. All good ideas. Whether they will ever actually happen is another story.
I have to say that, in a book on voting, I’m surprised that ranked-choice voting was not mentioned once. Without ranked-choice voting, people often cannot vote for their preferred candidate without feeling like they’re voting against their own party. This surely compels many people—faced with a vote between two lackluster candidates—to skip out on election day entirely. Ranked-choice voting eliminates this issue, allowing people to vote for whoever they want without throwing out their vote on longshot candidates. In a book that wants to encourage high voter turnout, this is a missed opportunity for the advocacy of an important policy.
Holder also mentions that one of the advantages of eliminating the Electoral College is that candidates would have to appeal to a larger group of people, forcing them to adopt less extreme positions. Ranked-choice voting would have a similar effect, and so is every bit as important in tempering polarization.
----
Overall, if you stop to think about it, the US is a pretty poor excuse for a democracy. Our government simply does not represent the majority. The Senate over-represents smaller states by a massive margin; the House (along with state legislatures), through gerrymandering, over-represents Republican voters; the Electoral College often grants the presidency to the candidate that lost the popular vote; and the Supreme Court consists of nine justices that are appointed for life by whatever president happens to be in office when a replacement is needed, leading, in some cases, to laws being gutted by unelected partisan judges. If you don’t see all this as a problem, and one predominantly coming from the right, then you’re not paying very close attention—or else democracy is not what you’re really after.
September 3, 2022
This should be required reading for all high school students next year!!
September 29, 2022
Really great read. This book looks at the history of voting and civil rights in the US, and the current threats to those rights, and ways that we can mobilize and organize to defeat those threats.
Highly recommended - especially this year. If you can squeeze it in before the midterms, do it.
Highly recommended - especially this year. If you can squeeze it in before the midterms, do it.
May 7, 2022
This book is a necessary read before the midterm election.
October 1, 2022
Our Unfinished March is wonderful! Our history around the right to vote is presented - with detailed documentation - in a unique and powerful way.
Part 1 - Lessons From the Past - provides the history of the right to vote from the very beginning of the U.S. to the early 2000s. There are many twists and turns that are not commonly known. Part 2 - The Crisis of the Present - focuses on the Obama and Trump years with the sharp contrasts and steps backward. Part 3 - A More Perfect Future - takes a multi-faceted look at what specific changes can and must be made to make sure we don't lose our democracy.
This book is so engaging. The writing is outstanding and enjoyable, even with this most serious topic. I highly recommend it for all who are concerned about the state of our democracy.
Part 1 - Lessons From the Past - provides the history of the right to vote from the very beginning of the U.S. to the early 2000s. There are many twists and turns that are not commonly known. Part 2 - The Crisis of the Present - focuses on the Obama and Trump years with the sharp contrasts and steps backward. Part 3 - A More Perfect Future - takes a multi-faceted look at what specific changes can and must be made to make sure we don't lose our democracy.
This book is so engaging. The writing is outstanding and enjoyable, even with this most serious topic. I highly recommend it for all who are concerned about the state of our democracy.
June 5, 2022
If there was ever a book to read, it is this one. I read this book right after reading The Trayvon Generation. And all I can think is what an extraordinary follow-up.
This is a must read for all Americans. It details voting rights and suppression movements spanning decades; including current attempts. It reminds us of the sacrifice and hard work of so many; including Dr. Martin Luther King, strong women who put everything on the line and Stacey Abrams. A time when blacks were merely 3/5’s a vote and women were not even considered. And it begs to question the true representation of the electoral college in current times.
Considering the current political climate, I found this book as the kick in the pants that I needed to remember why voting is so important. Because let’s be honest, there are times when it is hard to believe that our vote actually counts.
This is a must read for all Americans. It details voting rights and suppression movements spanning decades; including current attempts. It reminds us of the sacrifice and hard work of so many; including Dr. Martin Luther King, strong women who put everything on the line and Stacey Abrams. A time when blacks were merely 3/5’s a vote and women were not even considered. And it begs to question the true representation of the electoral college in current times.
Considering the current political climate, I found this book as the kick in the pants that I needed to remember why voting is so important. Because let’s be honest, there are times when it is hard to believe that our vote actually counts.
July 5, 2022
Good informative read on the history of voting rights in America, the struggle that has always taken place and is taking place today, and the steps we can take to move closer and closer to a one person - one vote, majority ruled nation. Learn stories about how we went from a country where only white men who owned certain amounts of property can vote (depended on the state) to where we are today where we still have not created a system by which registering to vote and voting is equally accessible to all. The authors also get into the un-democratic tendencies of all the branches of government.
December 2, 2022
4 1/2 stars rounded up. Excellent. Short but pithy. After reviewing the history of voting rights in our country, as well as the current challenges faced by minority voters, the former Attorney General sets out some concrete albeit ambitious proposals for a why forward. Great audio narration by the author.
July 27, 2022
This started out slowly with a lot of voting history but then it moved to changes in voting rights in recent history and it got much more interesting. Yet, most interesting was his take on what needs to change - filibuster, electoral college, politicians, state vs. federal, Supreme Court.
June 24, 2022
Aside from a smattering of historical trivia, this book does not add much to what is already common knowledge. I wonder if this was rushed to print? Redundancies, an incomplete sentence, a sentence ending with a preposition, etc. make me wonder about the skill of the editing staff at One World Publishing. I admire Mr. Holder but the book is nothing extraordinary.
October 29, 2022
Good ideas
Authors talks about the American Democracy and its power and flaws. They also see the need for change and propose ways to strengthen it.
Authors talks about the American Democracy and its power and flaws. They also see the need for change and propose ways to strengthen it.
January 30, 2023
Good, fast moving overview of voting rights history, pathways to right to vote, challenges to our democracy resulting from redistributing, voter suppression laws and inequities from these laws. Holder offers “must do” work for all of us to protect voting.
August 23, 2022
I picked up Our Unfinished March because Eric Holder is the Chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee —an organization I’ve spent the past five years working for in some capacity or another. A.G. Holder takes the readers through the history of the vote in America and how disenfranchised communities have time and time again persevered against all odds to achieve access to the ballot. The suffrage story in the United States is all at once appalling and inspiring. We’ve evolved from a nation where none but landowners could vote to a place there was near unfettered access to the ballot after the 1960s civil rights movement — a milestone that Holder explains is undoubtedly under attack. A.G. Holder’s response however is that those attacks are not unprecedented and that there are solutions that could protect and codify the right to free and fair elections such as fixing our redistricting processes, reforming the Supreme Court, and abolishing the electoral college. I found this book eminently readable as far as policy books go and appreciated doses of levity and candor throughout. I finished this book with a sense of optimism about the fight ahead and gratitude that I’ve had the chance to work for one of today's great leaders on voting rights issues.
August 17, 2022
I don't think I would have picked up this book if I had not listened to Eric Holder speak at a virtual book discussion. The moderators did a great job facilitating that discussion, therefore piquing my interest in both subject and book.
The author walks us through the history behind how the right to vote was won- from violence insurrection by white men; then strikes, protests and imprisonment by white women; and lynchings and terrorism by African Americans. Though the right to vote is the most important right as an American citizen, it continues to be one that is contested now, as it was throughout our history, with laws passed that create barriers to Americans voting instead of making voter access easier.
Former Attorney General Holder argues for sweeping reforms, such as term limits and streamlining appointments, that would protect American citizens. In last few book chapters, he addresses how we, American citizens, need to be active and engaged in politics in order to attain a true democracy.
The author walks us through the history behind how the right to vote was won- from violence insurrection by white men; then strikes, protests and imprisonment by white women; and lynchings and terrorism by African Americans. Though the right to vote is the most important right as an American citizen, it continues to be one that is contested now, as it was throughout our history, with laws passed that create barriers to Americans voting instead of making voter access easier.
Former Attorney General Holder argues for sweeping reforms, such as term limits and streamlining appointments, that would protect American citizens. In last few book chapters, he addresses how we, American citizens, need to be active and engaged in politics in order to attain a true democracy.
May 9, 2022
Finally, a concise discussion on pragmatic and urgent measures to fix the structure of the political system of our world's largest and oldest democracy.
March 11, 2023
It has a lot of good history, but also important perspective on the difficulties and triumphs of those that came before us. I found the solutions compelling and a lot of the content was quite inspirational. Great to read if you would like a boost to keep you fueled as you try to help ensure our democracy serves the people.
May 22, 2022
We must pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. That’s all I can say. Please read and share this book, one for historical reference and second to understand what we need to do to protect right our right to vote without the machinations of crazy people with power.
May 20, 2022
The title says it all - and the hopefulness of Mr Holder’s plan and common sense ways to cure and keep our democracy should be required reading for anyone who cares for this country.
March 13, 2024
This is a book which I probably should have read two years ago when it was first published, because now, of course, many of the “what ifs” Eric Holder discussed are even more imminently overshadowing our current political situation. The Republican mini-majority foretold in 2022 did indeed take over the House of Representatives last year, despite the tininess of their win. Their machinations and obstructionism have caused total ineffectiveness in the legislative branch. Even though technically the Democratic party got a genuine minority in the Senate, the defections of Manchin and Sinema nullified it. The situation in the judiciary deteriorated even further as the Supreme Court overthrew Roe v. Wade, found itself in the midst of ethical scandal, and is completely muddling any efforts to prosecute the Coup and other major threats perpetrated by the GOP operatives and former president as our next election becomes ever more in doubt. Still, “it isn’t over yet”, and many of Holder’s hopeful and helpful insights are still valid. Most important, I believe, is the fact that he reminds us how bad it was before the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts were finally passed, and the challenge he offers – if we could do it then, there is no reason not to try to do it again – is more than worth our serious response. May it be so.
September 24, 2022
An engaging, approachable, well-researched, and timely work, this book clearly lays out the tortured history of voting rights in the United States over its history, and makes consistently powerful arguments for the correlation between protecting voting rights and protecting the health of a democratic system. Holder's presentation of the largely suppressed history of the flourishing of truly representative democracy in the South under Reconstruction - and its premature and untimely end at the hand of racist political machinations - shows how the country has (and still can) do better in ensuring that all people have a genuine voice in government, and that such a system benefits the overall health and well-being of the entire population. This book is a timely encouragement to fight for the integrity and accessibility of voting rights in order to form and preserve "a more perfect union," rather than regress further towards authoritarianism and disenfranchisement.
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November 11, 2022A book that is put out to the public in the middle of a year when we are having a national election had better be a good book.
It is.
While the book is written in the themes and work of Democrats, the pages of “Our Unfinished March” can be useful to readers who are interested in elections. The author goes well beyond how election machines work. He uses history to show how elections open what we probably never learn in college or high school courses about elections.
In the book, we see how White and Black people see the election differently. A reader will find some of the details of presidents got to the White House. We get another view of what Trump has done to the system.
Some readers will take up a few pages and then put the book down. Others may find they need to do more than simply make a decision of their votes as they are driving to where we get to vote. Some other readers will be angry about the book.
It is.
While the book is written in the themes and work of Democrats, the pages of “Our Unfinished March” can be useful to readers who are interested in elections. The author goes well beyond how election machines work. He uses history to show how elections open what we probably never learn in college or high school courses about elections.
In the book, we see how White and Black people see the election differently. A reader will find some of the details of presidents got to the White House. We get another view of what Trump has done to the system.
Some readers will take up a few pages and then put the book down. Others may find they need to do more than simply make a decision of their votes as they are driving to where we get to vote. Some other readers will be angry about the book.
March 12, 2025
This is a short, well-written and documented book that succinctly takes the reader through a brief history of voting rights in America, suffrage movements and countless ups and downs in progress toward one-person-one-vote. The final section of the book sets forth proposed solutions that are all feasible without constitutional amendments. So, although the historical perspective reminds us how very far we are from the ideals of our democracy, hope is possible and solutions are available. (Of course, the book was published in 2022, before the lessons we learned in the 2024 election.)
This is not intended to be scholarly and benefits from some of Holder's testimony about his personal experiences. But it provides both real-world insight and visceral sensibility about the perils to American democracy. Energizing and worthy.
This is not intended to be scholarly and benefits from some of Holder's testimony about his personal experiences. But it provides both real-world insight and visceral sensibility about the perils to American democracy. Energizing and worthy.
July 11, 2022
Nothing new here but presented in one organized place. When it comes out in paperback buy lots of copies and distribute. How to best reform the Supreme Court? Term limits. How about the House and Senate? Voter protection bills and end the filibuster will do the trick. Shore up the media fake news allegations would help too. Even ways to improve Presidential elections by requiring states to send delegates to the electoral college that will vote only for the winner of the popular vote ( does not even require all states to sign on just enough states to assemble 270 electors ). It will not be easy but like others this makes the case we have options if we can just vote enough of them into law.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 8, 2025
If you have had that feeling recently that the will of the minority is ruling the country, this book helps you understand exactly how we got there. The original founding of the U.S. was designed that way! It's only been in the last 60 years that we've had close to full suffrage, but even that is manipulated through gerrymandering and other tactics. We are still so far from a true "one person, one vote" society unfortunately, and it's only getting worse. I understand better after reading this book that all the other issues I care about will find a hard path to getting considered if we don't fix the problem of denying so many Americans of their fundamental right to vote and be fairly represented.
August 6, 2022
A really, really great read to learn more about the history of voting, the current issues, and future possibilities to combat voter suppression. Topics such as the filibuster, gerrymandering, poll taxing, and the electoral college were discussed and described in a way that made it easy to understand and fully grasp- which is something I really appreciated throughout the book. Genuinely, I don't think I have said wtf out loud so many times while reading.
For anyone who does not believe their vote matters, this book will truly change your mind. There is still a long road to proper voting rights and the author makes sure to leave on a positive note while calling the readers into action.
For anyone who does not believe their vote matters, this book will truly change your mind. There is still a long road to proper voting rights and the author makes sure to leave on a positive note while calling the readers into action.
May 23, 2022
A comprehensive and condensed look at where we’ve come in the movement toward civil rights since the founding of our country. I think what makes this book unique is Holder’s own role in all of it, and how timely it is given the current state of the SCOTUS. I almost wish this could be updated in six months with everything that’s happened in the last six weeks. A solid history, and even more compelling predictive work on how our country might fall apart if it continues on its current path.
July 26, 2022
Very readable. Informative and instructional. Through things I've read recently I'm getting things figured out and clarifying my own thoughts, although I still don't have my mind around the filibuster!
Blurb from inside front flap: "A brutal, bloody, and at times hopeful history of the vote, a guide to the opponents fighting to take it away, and a playbook for how we can save our democracy before it's too late - from the former U.S. Attorney General on the front lines of this fight."
Blurb from inside front flap: "A brutal, bloody, and at times hopeful history of the vote, a guide to the opponents fighting to take it away, and a playbook for how we can save our democracy before it's too late - from the former U.S. Attorney General on the front lines of this fight."
September 10, 2023
So much I didn’t know and such hope for us we need to push for the popular vote to vote for our president not the electoral college.
And for a change for Supreme Court judges for 18 years not a lifetime, for each President to pick 2 judges one in there first year and another in their third year. We need to go to 9 judges for this to work.
And more states need independent commissions for distracting the voter precincts.
And for a change for Supreme Court judges for 18 years not a lifetime, for each President to pick 2 judges one in there first year and another in their third year. We need to go to 9 judges for this to work.
And more states need independent commissions for distracting the voter precincts.
August 11, 2024
This is an important book everyone should read now about how our democracy has veered even further away from being representative than the founding fathers envisioned it (spoiler alert: the vision was not so representative), the forces currently trying to turn the tide to permanent minority rule, and what we can do about it. A sad bonus for me was learning more about how the struggle to get the vote turned American women against the American Black community, a sober reminder that we lose when we let others divide us. The topic is dead serious but Holder is often funny, and speaks from a unique historical vantage point.
March 14, 2025
Eric Holder presents a succinct and clearly-structured history of voting rights in the U.S. and solutions for how we could truly achieve the "one-person, one vote" democratic ideal. This is an important book for our time. The question is, do we have the wil and stamina to continue the march?
Reforms needed:
Automatic Voter Registration
get rid of Electoral college (Holder proposes National Popular Interstate Compact already agreed to by 15 states & D.C.; electors would be bound to vote for candidate that receives most vote across country), add term limits to Supreme Court, get rid of fillibuster and gerrymandering
Reforms needed:
Automatic Voter Registration
get rid of Electoral college (Holder proposes National Popular Interstate Compact already agreed to by 15 states & D.C.; electors would be bound to vote for candidate that receives most vote across country), add term limits to Supreme Court, get rid of fillibuster and gerrymandering
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