Fragile Democracy
The Struggle over Race and Voting Rights in North Carolina
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Narrated by:
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Alan Carlson
About this listen
America is at war with itself over the right to vote, or, more precisely, over the question of who gets to exercise that right and under what circumstances. Conservatives speak in ominous tones of voter fraud so widespread that it threatens public trust in elected government. Progressives counter that fraud is rare and that calls for reforms such as voter ID are part of a campaign to shrink the electorate and exclude some citizens from the political life of the nation.
North Carolina is a battleground for this debate, and its history can help us understand why—a century and a half after ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment—we remain a nation divided over the right to vote. In Fragile Democracy, James L. Leloudis and Robert R. Korstad tell the story of race and voting rights, from the end of the Civil War until the present day. They show that battles over the franchise have played out through cycles of emancipatory politics and conservative retrenchment. When race has been used as an instrument of exclusion from political life, the result has been a society in which vast numbers of Americans are denied the elements of meaningful freedom: a good job, a good education, good health, and a good home. That history points to the need for a bold new vision of what democracy looks like.
©2020 James L. Leloudis and Robert R. Korstad (P)2020 The University of North Carolina PressListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
As Triangle-area professors James Leloudis and Bob Korstad ably document in their new book Fragile Democracy: The Struggle over Race and Voting Rights in North Carolina . . . arguments over who 'deserves' to vote are closely tied to struggles over whose interests government should serve.—Queen City Nerve
A researched look at North Carolina's fraught relationship with race and voting. By looking back, [Leloudis and Korstad] create a framework for the future.—IndyWeek
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Thaddeus Stevens
- Civil War Revolutionary, Fighter for Racial Justice
- By: Bruce Levine
- Narrated by: Landon Woodson
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Thaddeus Stevens was among the first to see the Civil War as an opportunity for a second American revolution - a chance to remake the country as a genuine multiracial democracy. As one of the foremost abolitionists in Congress in the years leading up to the war, he was a leader of the young Republican Party’s radical wing, fighting for anti-slavery and anti-racist policies long before party colleagues like Abraham Lincoln endorsed them. These policies - including welcoming black men into the Union’s armies - would prove crucial to the Union war effort.
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Excellent bio of a political hero
- By Anonymous User on 03-11-21
By: Bruce Levine
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What It Took to Win
- A History of the Democratic Party
- By: Michael Kazin
- Narrated by: Lee Goettl
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In What It Took to Win, the eminent historian Michael Kazin identifies and assesses the Democratic Party's long-running commitment to creating "moral capitalism" - a system that mixed entrepreneurial freedom with the welfare of workers and consumers. And yet the same party that championed the rights of the white working man also vigorously protected or advanced the causes of slavery, segregation, and Indian removal.
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Timely and informative History Book
- By Asha Sceanca on 03-24-22
By: Michael Kazin
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America for Americans
- A History of Xenophobia in the United States
- By: Erika Lee
- Narrated by: Shayna Small
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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The United States is known as a nation of immigrants. But it is also a nation of xenophobia. Here, Erika Lee shows that an irrational fear, hatred, and hostility toward immigrants has been a defining feature of our nation from the colonial era to the Trump era. Benjamin Franklin ridiculed Germans for their "strange and foreign ways." Americans' anxiety over Irish Catholics turned xenophobia into a national political movement. Forcing us to confront this history, America for Americans explains how xenophobia works, why it has endured, and how it threatens America.
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Essential to Understanding America
- By Edward Chin-Lyn on 11-09-20
By: Erika Lee
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Freedom's Dominion
- A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power
- By: Jefferson Cowie
- Narrated by: André Chapoy
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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American freedom is typically associated with the fight of the oppressed for a better world. But for centuries, whenever the federal government intervened on behalf of nonwhite people, many white Americans fought back in the name of freedom—their freedom to dominate others. In Freedom’s Dominion, historian Jefferson Cowie traces this complex saga by focusing on a quintessentially American place: Barbour County, Alabama, the ancestral home of political firebrand George Wallace.
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Very easily read and I learned a lot
- By Kev All on 02-05-23
By: Jefferson Cowie
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The Second Founding
- How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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From the Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation's foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time.
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Excellent book - problematic narrator
- By Jennifer on 10-01-19
By: Eric Foner
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We Are Not Yet Equal
- Understanding Our Racial Divide
- By: Carol Anderson, Tonya Bolden
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Carol Anderson's White Rage took the world by storm, landing on the New York Times best seller list and best book of the year lists from New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Chicago Review of Books. It launched her as an in-demand commentator on contemporary race issues for national print and television media and garnered her an invitation to speak to the Democratic Congressional Caucus. This compelling young adult adaptation brings her ideas to a new audience.
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Great
- By JD on 07-06-20
By: Carol Anderson, and others
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American Character
- A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good
- By: Colin Woodard
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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The struggle between individualism and the good of the community as a whole has been the basis of every major disagreement in our history, from the debates at the Constitutional Convention and in the run-up to the Civil War to the fights surrounding the agenda of the Progressives, the New Deal, the civil rights movement, and the Tea Party.
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Biased Misrepresentation
- By Jay Ehret on 06-24-16
By: Colin Woodard
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When Affirmative Action Was White
- An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America
- By: Ira Katznelson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In this "penetrating new analysis" ( New York Times Book Review), Ira Katznelson fundamentally recasts our understanding of 20th century American history and demonstrates that all the key programs passed during the New Deal and Fair Deal era of the 1930s and 1940s were created in a deeply discriminatory manner. Through mechanisms designed by southern democrats that specifically excluded maids and farm workers, the gap between blacks and whites actually widened despite postwar prosperity.
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Absolute Must Read
- By Andrew on 01-02-18
By: Ira Katznelson
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The Everything American Government Book
- From the Constitution to Present-Day Elections, All You Need to Understand Our Democratic System
- By: Nick Ragone
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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If the confusion following the last presidential election is any indication, the average citizen knows precious little about the democratic system and the laws that affect their daily lives. The Everything American Government Book unravels the complexities of our democracy and provides listeners with the knowledge necessary to make the right decisions and take an active role in the management of their country. This thoroughly researched work is ideal for anyone brushing up on civics, as well as students of all ages.
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A solid understanding of local, state and national political structure...
- By Amazon Customer on 12-25-19
By: Nick Ragone
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How the South Won the Civil War
- Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America
- By: Heather Cox Richardson
- Narrated by: Heather Cox Richardson
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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While the North prevailed in the Civil War, ending slavery and giving the country a "new birth of freedom," Heather Cox Richardson argues in this provocative work that democracy's blood-soaked victory was ephemeral. The system that had sustained the defeated South moved westward and there established a foothold. It was a natural fit. Settlers from the East had for decades been pushing into the West, where the seizure of Mexican lands at the end of the Mexican-American War and treatment of Native Americans cemented racial hierarchies....
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Disappointing book that wasted such potential.
- By Amazon Customer on 08-07-21
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White Rage
- The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide
- By: Carol Anderson
- Narrated by: Pamela Gibson
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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As Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014 and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to the angry response of African Americans as 'Black rage', historian Carol Anderson wrote a remarkable op-ed in the Washington Post showing that this was, instead, 'white rage at work. With so much attention on the flames,' she wrote, 'everyone had ignored the kindling.'
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Good History, Was Hoping For More Insight
- By Mike on 09-08-16
By: Carol Anderson
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Big Agenda
- President Trump's Plan to Save America
- By: David Horowitz
- Narrated by: Ian Patterson
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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One battle is over, but there are many more to come. This book is an indispensable guide to fighting the opponents of the conservative restoration. It identifies who the adversaries are, as well as their methods, motivations, and agenda, including the particular issues with which they will try to advance their destructive goal - and it lays out a strategy to defeat all of it.
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Title doesn't match content.
- By Gigi on 02-12-17
By: David Horowitz
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The Fierce Urgency of Now
- Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society
- By: Julian E. Zelizer
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The Fierce Urgency of Now animates the full spectrum of forces at play during these turbulent years, including religious groups, the media, conservative and liberal political action groups, unions, and civil rights activists. Above all, the great character in the audiobook whose role rivals Johnson's is Congress - indeed, Zelizer argues that our understanding of the Great Society program is too Johnson-centric.
What listeners say about Fragile Democracy
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- paul mehall
- 06-24-21
Wonderful Book!!
This book tells of a long standing problem in North Carolina. Hate has been a big problem there for a long time.
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