CANTON -- St. Lawrence University’s Contemporary Issues Forum will host Ari Berman, contributing writer for The Nation magazine, for a lecture, question-and-answer session and book signing at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 10, in Eben Holden.

Berman’s book, Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, charts both the transformation of American democracy under the Voting Rights Act and the counterrevolution that has sought to limit voting rights from 1965 to the present day.

The act enfranchised millions of Americans and is widely regarded as the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. Yet, 50 years later, the nation still fights heated battles over race, representation and political power with lawmakers devising new strategies to keep minorities out of the voting booth and the Supreme Court declaring a key part of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional.

Berman is a contributing writer for The Nation magazine and an investigative journalism fellow at The Nation Institute. He has written extensively about American politics, civil rights and the intersection of money and politics. His stories have also appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and The Guardian, and he is a frequent political commentator on MSNBC, C-Span and NPR. His new book, Give Us the Ballot, was published in August by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. His first book, Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics, was published in October 2010. He graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University with a degree in journalism and political science. He lives in New York City.

The Contemporary Issues Forum brings experts and participants in the making of news to St. Lawrence University.

For more information, contact 229-5998.