The Institute for Common Power invites you to join us for our Summer Reading discussion of One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy by Dr. Carol Anderson. We will be meeting virtually to dig into this urgent, deeply researched account of voter suppression in America.

This selection isn't part of our Banned Books Club — while Dr. Anderson’s other important work in White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide has been banned; One Person, No Vote hasn't been banned or challenged in schools or libraries. It’s timely and critically important for us to read. On April 29, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Louisiana v. Callais, significantly weakening Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and making it far harder to challenge racially discriminatory voting maps. Dr. Anderson's book, published in 2018, chronicles the earlier rollback of voting rights that began with Shelby County v. Holder in 2013 — the decision that gutted the VRA's preclearance requirements and opened the door to today's wave of voter suppression laws.

Reading it now, in the immediate aftermath of Callais, offers essential historical grounding for understanding how we got here and what may lie ahead.