UL says its discussion series focusing on the history of voting rights in the United States will take place next month.

That series, "Who Gets to Vote? Conversations on Voting Rights in America," is funded by a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. UL applied for and received the grant after the Lafayette Public Library Board of Control declined the grant.

The four-week series begins on Wednesday, March 10. Successive sessions will take place on the following Wednesday nights. Each session will run from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. According to university officials, participants will discuss one of four books. Those discussions will take place via Zoom. University professors will serve as discussion moderators, not as lecturers.

The series's book schedule is as follows:
March 10: The Embattled Vote in America: From the Founding to the Present, by Allan J. Lichtman.
March 17: Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All, by Martha S. Jones.
March 24: One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy, by Carol Anderson.
March 31: Bending Toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy, by Gary May.

Political science professor Pearson Cross will moderate the March 10 and 24 discussions. History professor Theodore Foster will moderate the March 17 and 31 sessions.

To register for a spot in a seminar, click here. Spots are limited and available on a first-come first-served basis.

The Acadiana Open Channel will televise each discussion. AOC will also live stream and archive the discussions on its YouTube channel.

“More than 159 million voters cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election,” said Susan Richard, UL Lafayette’s interim dean of University Libraries, in a press release. “With deepening civic engagement comes the need to better appreciate how Americans have secured the right to vote and, in many instances, have struggled to retain it.

“This series of book readings and discussions does just that, and Dupré Library and the University are happy to bring this vital and timely event to our community."

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