MAALL Book to Action
MAALL Book to Action is a service project that brings MAALL together to read a common title and benefit the community in which the Annual Meeting is hosted by providing books to those who need them.
2021 Book to Action Program
In your line up of summer reading, please add One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy by Carol Anderson.
The issue of voting rights, voting integrity and voter suppression has been front and center over the past few years. In One Person, No Vote, Carol Anderson looks at the history of voting and efforts to restrict the ballot since the early years of our democracy. Then she focuses on the rollbacks of African-American participation in the vote since 2013, after the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Shelby v. Holder. The Shelby ruling allowed states with a history of discrimination against Blacks at the ballot box to change voting requirements without prior approval from the U.S. Department of Justice (eliminating one section of the federal Voting Rights Act).
Focusing on the aftermath of Shelby, Anderson describes the restrictive voting laws that came into effect at the state level, some as soon as a few hours after the decision came down. This book provides detailed information on the different types of efforts to limit voting, from poll closures to voter ID requirements and more. She also devotes a chapter to activist efforts to counter these restrictive laws.
Timely and provocative, One Person, One Vote is sure to lead to lively discussion and debate. We look forward to discussing this book with you at the 2021 MAALL Conference.
As our charity for 2021, we will be supporting Family Development Services, A Head Start Organization. Our book donations will provide books to children served by Head Start and Early Head Start in the Indianapolis area. Our book drive also will support Kids Ink Children’s Bookstore, an independent bookstore located in Indianapolis. To donate, go to the Kids Ink website. Click on the MAALL Book to Action link. Follow the instructions to select the books to donate. Include the words “Book to Action” in the comment line when you place your order. Thank you for donating!
MAALL Book to Action Coordinators,
History: MAALL was inspired to begin the Book to Action program in 2014 by our MAALL Annual Meeting keynote speaker, Steve Bogira. When asked what law librarians can do to help those in prison situations, Mr. Bogira suggested that we work on providing reading material for the incarcerated. Cindy Bassett announced the first Book to Action project in her Letter from the President in the September 2015 MAALL Markings (pages 7-8).
- 2015: Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson; donated books to the Missouri Department of Corrections.
- 2016: This Book is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson; donated books to Positive Tomorrows.
- 2017: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond; donated books to Literacy Services of Wisconsin.
- 2018: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander; donated books to Project Stand.
- 2019: They Can't Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement by Wesley Lowery; donated books to Caring for Kids.
- 2020: Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America by Paul Tough; donated books to Project Home Indy.
Jan Abrams, Director of Caring for Kids with some of the delivered books from the 2019 Book to Action book drive.