58 pages • 1 hour read
Carol AndersonOne Person, No Vote
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “The Resistance”
Alabama, a historic stage for civil rights showdowns, remains in crisis with a poverty rate above 25% in Black Belt counties and 42nd ranking nationwide for quality of government. In 2017, the state returned to the spotlight for the US Senate special election between Republican Judge Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones, the attorney who prosecuted Ku Klux Klan members responsible for the 1963 Birmingham church bombings.
Moore was an extreme conservative with a history of controversy, including two removals from the Alabama Supreme Court, accusations of stalking and sexual assault on a minor, and a desire to remove all Constitutional amendments after the Bill of Rights. However, Moore remained the favorite due to his support from Donald Trump and Southern Baptists in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat Senator in 25 years.
Alabama also maintained extensive voter suppression measures due to Act Number 2011-673. Governor Robert Bentley closed DMVs in 18 Black-majority counties, leaving a third of the state’s voting population more than 10 miles away from a regularly open office. The mobile DMV that replaced the locations only issued a fraction of the estimated 25,000 cards, and 56% of rural voters and 20% of urban voters do not have Internet access for online registration. Courthouses also provided voter IDs but had limited hours and a history of racial injustice. Secretary of State John Merrill purged 340,162 voters from the rolls in 2017, including a state representative who claimed that he never received a notice. The state has no early voting. Felons who commit “moral turpitude” can also lose their rights (128), and when the state finally defined what that meant in 2017, it did not notify the 250,000 citizens who regained their right to vote.
Defeating Moore would require Black voter turnout that eclipsed the Obama elections. A coalition of churches, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), the ACLU, NAACP LDF, and The Ordinary People Society (TOPS) focused on grassroots mobilization, legal challenges, and education initiatives. As in the past, resistance groups messaged key constituencies about the importance to stalling Trump’s regressive policies. They also utilized funding from national groups like BlackPAC while ensuring local ownership of operations.
The Alabama NAACP and its allies coordinated statewide rallies. Legal Services Alabama and the local ACLU ran radio and social media advertising to promote voting restoration. They also hosted stationary and mobile clinics where legal professionals helped former felons determine whether they qualified for restoration. Other workshops educated people on necessary documents and alternative IDs like official mugshots.
The Alabama NAACP created local phone banks to connect with lapsed voters. Throughout the year, the NAACP and partner groups completed 1.32 million calls, 220,000 postcards, social media videos with 1.4 million Facebook ad impressions, and 1 million texts—plus countless door-to-door impressions. The millennial-focused Woke Vote obtained 11,000 promises to vote from HBCUs and churches, while Righteous Voter reached 146 churches with 300,000 people. VoteRider’s voter ID clinics assisted citizens with obtaining birth certificates, change-of-name forms, and other requirements for getting state IDs. Senate Majority PAC, created to counter GOP dark money, provided $6M into the campaign for ground operations. The Black Voters Matter Fund crowdfunded $200,000 the week before the election that paid 460 canvassers.
Moore suffered setbacks as the Washington Post published an investigation into his sexual assault accusations, while The New Yorker wrote about his ban from a local mall. Alabama Senior Senator Richard Shelby refused to endorse Moore and encouraged voters to write a candidate in, yet the polls still favored the Republican.
Election Day brought familiar obstacles: long lines, limited resources in Black districts, and victims of voter roll purges learning of their fate. Some reports even saw the removal of disability ramps at polling places. The Lawyer’s Committee, National Bar Association, and BlackPAC mobilized lawyers to assist with IDs and remind voters to stay in line after deadlines. Organized and informal rideshare efforts also brought those without transportation to the polls.
Moore began with a smaller-than-usual lead because of write-in candidates. The group Indivisible helped three of six counties that Trump won in 2016 select Jones, and Jones overtook Moore as results came in from majority Black counties. Defying state expectations, voter turnout reached 40% statewide and over 50% in Jones-supporting counties. After losing by 20,715 votes, Moore blamed voter fraud in Birmingham, a claim that Anderson says “was as hollow as the man” (148).
Chapter 5 Analysis
Anderson begins the chapter by invoking imagery of the civil rights movement in Alabama, such as the bombing of Freedom Rider buses and Bloody Sunday on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge. Details such as how Selma’s Brown Chapel AME Church, a makeshift hospital during Bloody Sunday, hosted a restoration clinic frame the 2017 special election as a continuation of this struggle. She also outlines Alabama’s dismal human services record: second-to-last state in infant mortality, 47th in education, 45th in low poverty rate, and 46th in low unemployment rate.
The Senate seat was to replace the US Senate seat of Jeff Sessions after he became Trump’s first attorney general. News coverage of the time frames the election as a referendum on Trump, and Anderson criticizes its depiction of the Doug Jones campaign as a last-minute effort. She treats it more as a coalition of groups to stop a particularly offensive bigot than as an effort to elect Jones. Still, Anderson credits Jones for revitalizing the state’s Democratic Party and regularly visiting Black organizations.
Alabama passed Act Number 2011-673 years before the Shelby decision, but it did not bother applying for preclearance because of its obvious discrimination. For example, it does not accept government-issued assisted-living IDs for voting. Politicians in recorded conversations explicitly stated its intent to suppress “aborigines” and “illiterates” who are brought in by “H.U.D.-financed buses” (124), and the state rejects even modest suggestions to lessen the law’s impact. As with most voter suppression regulations, the “moral turpitude” condition for disfranchisement is vaguely defined outside of obvious crimes like murder. The codification of these guidelines is because of the ACLU and Pastor Kenneth Glasgow, now leader of The Ordinary People Society, after he struggled to obtain post-felony re-enfranchisement for years only to find out that he shouldn’t have lost the right in the first place.
Anderson stresses the importance of person-to-person activism. The money-in-politics debate often focuses on advertising, but the ability to pay activists to work with people directly is invaluable. Likewise, local groups should have input on how to use national funding as they know which tactics are most effective, such as pastors reaching their parishioners using NAACP robo-calls and voter registration tables. The goal of these efforts is not to tell someone to vote, but to help define themselves as a voter using language like, “We rely on reliable voters like you” and “What time of day are you going to vote?” (138). Call centers can also assist with addressing confusion about polling places and voter rolls.
This contrasted with the Moore campaign, which relied on President Trump’s endorsement and conservative media. Right-wing outlets like Breitbart framed the registration drives as a scheme by billionaire George Soros, a frequent target for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and raised suspicion about Pastor Glasgow. This counternarrative, along with distrust of traditional news media and adherence to the party agenda, allowed Moore to regain his foothold even after his past as an alleged sexual predator was revealed. While Senator Richard Shelby did protest his party’s nominee, he could not endorse Jones because that would violate the state party’s membership guidelines. This is another example of how voter suppression damages the party employing it: Even without this rule, endorsing a Democrat would invite a more extremist primary challenger.
The 2017 special election leaves some positive lessons. A dedicated registration campaign can overcome barriers to the ballot, even in a state infamous for systemic racism. Improving turnout within the party’s base is key—while the write-in candidates hurt Moore, it shows that many Republicans will not cross party lines to select Jones, a moderate Democrat who often breaks rank with his party (Edelman, Adam and Rebecca Shabad. “Alabama Democrat Doug Jones walks tightrope with Trump and his own party.” NBC News, 2 July 2018). While Citizens United gives outside money potentially to influence local elections, funding from progressive PACs is integral to funding the expansive ground game.
However, it’s important to recognize the unusual factors at play: an off-year election with national scrutiny and a toxic opponent. It was a statewide race, so gerrymandering isn’t a factor. The real challenge will come in federal and midterm elections, where Jones will have to face a more palatable challenger while retaining his base.
