The Power of the Vote
Electing Presidents, Overthrowing Dictators, and Promoting Democracy Around the World
Chapter One
Canvassing, the Klan, and the Plot to Take Over New York City
It was one of those classic, miserable, late-autumn afternoons in New York City—rainy, windy, and raw—when no sensible person lingers outside. Yet there I was, a sixteen-year-old high school senior sitting on a park bench at Eighty-First Street and Columbus Avenue next to a recent Columbia graduate—and newly elected district leader—named Jerry Nadler. Today, Jerry represents the Upper West Side and part of Brooklyn in Congress, but that afternoon he was merely an operative—a large, effusive operative with a message so important, so consequential that he couldn't risk divulging it within the earshot of another person.
Jerry's message concerned the powers that controlled the Upper West Side. Three years earlier, supporters of presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy had begun to wrest control of the neighborhood away from the reform Democrats who only a few years before had di ... read full excerpt from: The Power of the Vote ebook
