Blackball is Darryl Pinckney's meditation on a century and a half of black participation in U.S. electoral politics. In this combination of memoir, historical narrative, and contemporary political and social analysis, he investigates the struggle for black voting rights from Reconstruction through the civil rights movement, leading up to the election of Barack Obama as president.

Interspersed through the historical narrative are Pinckney's own memories of growing up during the civil rights era, his unsure grasp of the events he saw on television or heard discussed, and the reactions of his parents to the social changes that were taking place at the time and later to Obama's election. He concludes with an examination of the current state of electoral politics, the place of blacks in the Democratic coalition, and the ongoing efforts by Republicans to suppress the black vote, with particular attention to the Supreme Court's recent decision to strike down part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and what it may mean for the political influence of black voters in future elections.