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Book Details Title: Stolen Justice: The Struggle for African American Voting Rights (Scholastic Focus): The Struggle for African American Voting Rights Author: Lawrence Goldstone Number of pages: Publisher: Scholastic Focus (January 7, 2020) Language: English ISBN: 1338323482 Rating: 4,7     13 reviews

Book Description Review Praise for Unpunished Murder:A Booklist Youth Editors’ Choice selection* “A gripping story and a well-informed perspective on American history. Spotlighting an event seldom discussed in books for young people, Goldstone provides a complex, useful historical context for understanding issues surrounding race and justice.” — Booklist, starred review* “The book is, in large part, the story of how racism evolves, persisting in laws and politics despite major social advances.” — The Horn Book, starred review”This book shines a light on a shameful sea change moment in U.S. history… Difficult and necessary.” — Kirkus Reviews”This is a unique look at not only the massacre in question, but also at the history and workings of the Supreme Court of the United States… This work shows a more complete history of the Reconstruction era and the way the highest levels of government were affected by a country trying to heal and make amends.” — School Library ConnectionPraise for Higher, Steeper, Faster:* “For those who love history, aviation, or stories of great daring, this is pure pleasure.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review* “Readers will breathlessly follow the race to conquer the sky.” — School Library Connection, starred review* “Goldstone deftly combines captivating descriptions of the personalities — male and female — with discussion of the many improvements and ever-present hazards of early flying.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review”This look at the early days of the industry highlights the thrill and awe of a watching public as well as the fact that the sky was no longer any sort of boundary.” — Booklist”Armchair thrillseekers will settle in and read this one straight through.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books Read more About the Author Lawrence Goldstone has written more than a dozen books for adults, including three on Constitutional Law. Unpunished Murder was his first book on that subject for young readers. He lives in Sagaponack, New York, with his wife, medieval and Renaissance historian Nancy Goldstone. Read more Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. With the army concentrated in the cities or other densely populated areas, the Klan’s reputation in the countryside as a terrorist organization beyond the reach of law spread dread among black residents. Often, Klan members needed simply to show up to keep black men from the voting booth. Even worse, in those cases, the Klan would not specifically have broken any laws.”If a party of white men, with ropes conspicuous on their saddlebows, rode up to a polling place and announced that hanging would begin in fifteen minutes, though without any more definite reference to anybody, and a group of blacks who had assembled to vote heard the remark and promptly disappeared, votes were lost, but a conviction on a charge of intimidation was difficult. Or if an untraceable rumor that trouble was [looming] for blacks was followed by the mysterious appearance of horsemen on the roads at midnight, firing guns and yelling at nobody in particular, votes again were lost, but no crime or misdemeanor could be brought home to any one.”Even with the army in occupation, Klan terror was successful. In the presidential election of 1868, in eleven counties in Georgia, each with a majority of black voters, not a single vote was reported for Grant and the Republicans. That same year, when the Reconstruction state constitution was up for a vote in Mississippi, “it was charged by the Republicans . . . that whites terrorized the negroes by the Kuklux method, and either kept them away from the polls or intimidated them into voting against the Constitution.”By 1875, largely because of the campaign of terror by Klan groups and other violent white supremacist organizations, seven of the eleven secessionist states had been “Redeemed,” or returned to Democratic control. The remaining four, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, would become the centers of both the war-at-any-cost effort to restore white rule and the last desperate attempts to maintain at least some areas of equal rights in the South.Perched on the fulcrum of this seesaw was the United States Supreme Court. Read more Customers Review: An excellent book written for young students shows how our voter suppression is a feature, not a bug in our democracy. It’s also a good primer for adults with quick historic reference material that traces back to the founding of the country.The book outlines the overthrow of a local government, violence and legal maneuvering that targeted African Americans. It does not step back from the violence this created or the subjugation of entire communities. All of this is written from historical perspective, without judgement. The accompanying political ads, newspaper clippings and commentaries help trace the efforts to block voting rights of other disenfranchised groups.Stolen Justice concentrates primarily on efforts through the mid 20th century and the Voting Rights Act. While the final chapter calls out more current cases, this leaves the reader with an incomplete picture. The disenfranchisement efforts have never stopped. As this is a book for young students, they need to know how history is repeated and refined in today’s world. This is a generally easy to read (directed at middle and high school readers but of interest to adults as well) summary of the sad history of how the right to vote has all too often been prohibited to too many in the US. It is thorough but relatively brief because it focuses specifically on this area of the ongoing fraught race relations over the centuries.Given the recent attempts to again restrict voters in so many areas, this history is especially important to know. Included are some facts that many of us may not have been aware of. For example, the important changes during the Civil War years that proclaimed former slaves now ‘full” persons, not the 3/5 included from the first drafting of the Constitution, the Confederate States returned to Congress after the war having more representation than prior to that conflict! While the Reconstruction was in place, this helped to pass many significant pieces of legislation, but the terror and corruption that began to remove voting rights from newly enfranchised black citizens soon removed any impact those increased population numbers might have had.Definitely an important read, but there are two problems that keep Stolen Justice a five star book. First, while it is generally an easy read, some passages slip into a very confusing narrative style, sometimes because of excessive “legalese” and sometimes just because of poor editing. The chapter on Virginia v. Rives the “school-butter” case, is a clear example.The other problem here is that the author often moves from objective narration of the facts of the history to very opinionated commentary. As a result, he may have given those who see no problem with what has transpired over the years a reason to say there is no problem; the author is too biased to tell us anything new.It will indeed be unfortunate if that kind of dismissal occurs, so I hope all who read this understand that this is a factual and very well-documented narrative of a part of our history we dare not ignore. I’ve spent the last two years researching the American women’s fight for the vote. The 15th Amendment mainly makes its appearance as an issue that divided the suffrage movement between those who supported African American men gaining the vote, regardless of whether women had to wait, and those who believed that if both women and African Americans couldn’t be enfranchised at the same time, women deserved it first. I began to think that I needed to know more about the 15th Amendment, and along comes Lawrence Goldstone’s book. Perfect timing!Stolen Justice has been published by Scholastic Focus, a new nonfiction imprint of Scholastic meant for young adults. I love that there’s a nonfiction imprint! Children mostly read fiction starting from a young age, and so they develop no taste for narrative nonfiction. I’m an adult who reads almost exclusively nonfiction, and I’m finding that I enjoy middle grade and YA reads, especially when it’s a topic I know little about.Mr. Goldstone’s book held many revelations for me. The battle for voting rights for African Americans didn’t begin and end with the 15th Amendment. He examines, for example, how two unlikely court cases — an ax murder and a bullying incident that led to murder — helped and hurt the cause. It’s the first place where I’ve read about the origins of the Ku Klux Klan as a pranking occupation for bored college boys. As always, I’m astonished (and horrified) at how brutally white men acted toward African American men and women. It’s chilling no matter how many times you read of violence in the streets, at the polls and in the home.The book really came alive for me when the author focuses on the people and personalities involved, but it lags when you have to slog through legal arguments. Maybe not for a child who already knows they want to be a lawyer, though! All in all, I look forward to reading more books from this imprint, and I hope nonfiction finally has its day. I volunteer at our local library and every day I see fiction books going in and out, while many fine nonfiction reads remain on the shelves gathering dust.