Politics & Prose at Busboys and Poets 14th & V welcomes Mary Frances Berry to discuss her new book "Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich: Vote Buying and the Corruption of Democracy."
In her twelfth book, Dr. Berry, former chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and currently a professor of social thought and history at the University of Pennsylvania, examines the history of electoral corruption in the United States. Drawing on recent work in Louisiana to clean up that state’s electoral irregularities, Berry discusses methods of disenfranchisement from outright fraud and vote buying to the more insidious discouragements of inaccessible polling places and voter ID requirements. Her analysis is a timely call for educating and empowering voters—especially in poorer communities.
