Voting Hopes or Fears?

Thirty years after the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, whites remain resistant to the election of blacks to public office. This widespread resistance, Keith Reeves illustrates, can be explained in large part by election campaign appeals to whites' racial fears and sentiments. Through innovative experimental studies, this text provides fresh and startling empirical evidence that the issue of race still pervades the consciousness of American society and prevents blacks from winning elections in districts where whites comprise a majority of the electorate.