The University of Arizona Press
A Long Fight for the Vote
Navajos, Utes, and the Path to Equal Voting Rights
In A Long Fight for the Vote, Daniel C. McCool offers a deeply researched and compelling account of the fight for equal voting rights in San Juan County, Utah—homeland to the Navajo and Ute peoples and a flashpoint of persistent Anglo–Native conflict.
Centering on landmark voting rights cases that culminated in the historic election of two Navajo county commissioners, McCool situates these legal battles within a broader history of discrimination, shifting federal Indian policy, and the gradual political empowerment of Native communities across the American West. Through meticulous analysis, the book reveals how local elections became a crucible for national debates over citizenship, sovereignty, and democracy.
Drawing on court records, expert testimony, and decades of engagement with voting rights litigation, McCool demonstrates that Native peoples have never been passive victims of disenfranchisement but active protagonists in a sustained struggle for political equality. Richly contextualized and powerfully argued, A Long Fight for the Vote speaks to scholars and students of law, politics, and Western history, as well as legal professionals and engaged readers seeking to understand how race, power, and the ballot box intersect in Indian Country—and why these struggles continue to shape American democracy today.
“A comprehensive study of how Diné and Native peoples have struggled to participate in the American Dream.”—Jennifer Nez Denetdale, author of Reclaiming Diné History: The Legacies of Navajo Chief Manuelito and Juanita
“This is, in my view, the most powerful, the most eloquent, and the most thorough treatment of Indigenous voting issues that has been written. The author is in full command of all the facts and allows the voices of both the victims of discriminatory treatment—Navajos, Utes, and Paiutes—and the voices of their oppressors—state and county officials—to be heard.”—David E. Wilkins, author of Indigenous Governance: Clans, Constitutions, and Consent
“This book is essential reading for those interested in the long-fought and highly fraught effort to ensure that Native Americans have meaningful access to the ballot box. It also should appeal to anyone interested in the conflicts between Navajos and Mormons over southern Utah land and power. McCool is the ideal authority to write this history, and the book is full of details that may surprise and enlighten even close followers of Navajo issues.”—Ezra Rosser, author of A Nation Within: Navajo Land and Economic Development
