Intersectionality in Electoral Politics: A Mess Worth Making

Abstract

Prior to the recent reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, I was involved in numerous conversations regarding strategies for its renewal. These conversations prompted me to reflect not only on the impact of the Voting Rights Act for African-American citizenship but in particular on the ways in which it did for African-American women what the Constitution and its amendments had previously failed to do. After all, it is not until the passage of this legislation that African-American women are first extended a modicum of citizenship in the United States.