Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback Into a New Vision of Social Justice

by Lani Guinier

The former nominee for assistant attorney general for civil rights discusses, for the first time, how President Clinton abandoned his ambitious civil rights agenda when the political right attacked her nomination, and how the civil rights movement has subsequently suffered. 50,000 first printing. Tour.

Genres: Nonfiction, African American, Politics, Biography

336 pages, Hardcover

First published April 7, 1998

Reviews

[Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting, but a slow read...a lot more historical than I expected. mostly about her experience with the clinton admin. and the history of the voting rights act and the civil rights movement.
*****
This became a lot more interesting in Chapters 9 and 10 when Guinier elaborates on her controversial thoughts on cumulative voting. I hung on her every word because her wisdom and experience was obvious.

Cumulative voting and her desire to democratically include majority and minority votes, particularly in prominent elections, was highly controversial when she was nominated. [minority not just referring to racial minorities, but all minorities across party, economic, geographical lines]. Her idea at the time, however, was seen as only favoring blacks.

I'd never considered her ideas so I was left to think and re-think her ideas quite a bit. Don't know if I agree or disagree, but she certainly shook up what I thought I knew.

Ms. Guinier has long been part of the civil rights movement (mid 70's and 80's) and mentions working with Deval Patrick (current gvnor of Mass.) and other prominent activists when they were all "in the trenches". pretty cool.

She was a bit repetitive at times and kinda annoying at the amount of detail she provided in her storytelling. Nevertheless, it's a book of historical and intellectual significance.

[Alexander Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pros: a unique voice for the time it was written with a history of understanding how nation-states create unnecessary challenges for accepting diverse voices. Also a book that explains why voting rights and her particular brand of voting, cumulative voting, might be valuable for those voices.

Cons: This book is primarily a giant appeal-to-authority piece wrapped in a related sob story, motivating support for her underexplained voting policies. It's a voting policy sales pitch without much evidence for why.

In total, this is a book that is much like the propaganda monographs of other politicians and big name news journalists/pundits. Although it does introduce a unique voting method that could potentially help more minorities get representation in a more democratic way, it's not clear that this is a true or even reasonable conclusion based on what is contained in the book.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book while watching Obama assemble his cabinet. I don't know much about the way things work in Washington (though I recently got hooked on West Wing and have watched 6 season's worth since September!) but it seemed very revealing about how disorganized and agendaless the Clinton's were.

Her stuff about cumulative voting fascinates me, coming off the 2008 primary season. I thought over and over last year about how differently the Republican and Democratic primary season's unfolded simply due to the winner-take-all nature of the Republicans compared with the proportional system of the Democrats. It sure made a difference to how hard I worked on electoral politics last year--knowing that every vote counted at the margin.

I wish Lani Guinier would write about the Democratic primary rules and how she sees them. One drawback is that no one seems to understand them, even the delegates themselves. But overall the system really seemed to create the kind of engagement that Guinier champions and I don't see us going back to being unengaged.

[Bob Schmitz · Rating 1 out of 5]

I only made it through the first 2 chapters of this book. After reading 100 pages of repeated complaining about how she was misunderstood and unfairly treated I had enough. Guiner explains over and over the elements of her cumulative voting ideas. One time was fine. She complains over and over about how people treated her unfairly (welcome to politics) She moves on to complain interaction by interaction how a dozen people including President Clinton suggested she withdraw from her Justice Department nomination and how she refuses. Then she complains about characterized as "not a team player!" Oh Please!

Ms. Guiner is obviously a very bright, insightful, courageous individual with wonderful ideas. She sounds like she was an exceptional civil rights lawyer. And she clearly is not politically savvy. Her writing is slow repetitive and boring and her repeated "mea NO culpas" are tiring. I did not read on to find out how she presented her behavior in the not paying taxes for an employee part.

If anyone wants this book let me know and I will mail it too you.

[Jennifer Farmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was simply amazing. It was filled with history and intriguing to read. I treasure this book for the many lessons learned about politics, the civil rights movement and the NAACP LDF.