African American Studies Commons^™

Diversity At The Ballot Box: Electoral Politics And Maine's Minority Communities, Post-Wwii To The Present, University Of Southern Maine, Selma Botman, Howard M. Solomon, Abraham J. Peck, Bob Greene

Publications (Annual Event Catalog)

As this year’s Sampson Center exhibition makes clear the powerful desire to find historical inevitability in the advance toward equal opportunity for all Americans has become far more nuanced by the sometimes discomforting reminders that advances at the ballot box are neither as clear-cut nor as unconditional as we once hoped. The ancient antipathies of racism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia are not so easily elided by political campaigns and elections. The pace of social consensus requires a degree of patience and continuing attention that tries the very fabric of American life while we attempt to comprehend the consequences of change wrought …