One (Wo)man, One Vote

I started One (Wo)Man, One Vote in the Spring of 2017 after hearing so many people, and especially young people, say they hadn't voted in 2016. My first reaction was "how in the world could you not vote?" But then I thought about the fact that many people in this country probably have no idea what it took for every citizen of the United States to be able to vote.

I wanted to chronicle in detail the high price that African Americans, women, and young people paid to get the right to vote, the measures that were taken to prevent them from voting and the tactics that are still in use today to diminish their voice at the ballot box.

The good news is there are many efforts being undertaken to reform voting laws to ensure that every vote counts. The object of this book is to educate, inspire and hopefully be the anthem for everyone to exercise the hard-won right to vote.

Voter suppression is not new. Throughout this country's history, some have tried to keep the power of the vote in the hands of a select few. Every time the electorate has been expanded to include more citizens, it has taken an amendment to the United States Constitution to accomplish it. And every time that has happened, there have been efforts to keep the newly enfranchised from exercising that Constitutional right.

For women, for young people, for African Americans and for other minorities, gaining that right was not easy and many paid the ultimate price.

In One (Wo)Man, One Vote, Julie Powell tells the story of what it took for those groups to be able to vote and chronicles the historical effort to limit and suppress their voices that continues today. Powell's narrative shows that safeguarding the right of every citizen to cast a ballot is an ongoing struggle, but one that must continue in order to protect our democracy and progress toward a government that is truly representative of all its citizens.