2023
Working Paper
HBS Working Paper Series

Black Empowerment and White Mobilization: The Effects of the Voting Rights Act

By: Andrea Bernini, Giovanni Facchini, Marco Tabellini and Cecilia Testa

Format:Print
| Language:English
| Pages:77

Abstract

The 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) paved the road to Black empowerment. How did southern whites respond? Leveraging newly digitized data on county-level voter registration rates by race between 1956 and 1980, and exploiting pre-determined variation in exposure to the federal intervention, we document that the VRA increases both Black and white political participation. Consistent with the VRA triggering countermobilization, the surge in white registrations is concentrated where Black political empowerment is more tangible and salient due to the election of African Americans in county commissions. Additional analysis suggests that the VRA has long-lasting negative effects on whites’ racial attitudes.

Keywords

Government Legislation; Race; Behavior; Voting; Prejudice and Bias

Citation

Bernini, Andrea, Giovanni Facchini, Marco Tabellini, and Cecilia Testa. "Black Empowerment and White Mobilization: The Effects of the Voting Rights Act." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 23-075, June 2023. (Revise and resubmit at the Journal of Political Economy. Also available on Vox EU.)