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A hand demonstrates a push lever system in voting booth, and students wait in line to vote in a mock election held at Morgan State University in Baltimore

The Forgotten First Voting Rights Act

How the defeat of the 1890 Lodge bill presaged today’s age of ballot-driven backlash.
by Ed Burmila via The Forum on October 17, 2022
"Home of Fannie Lou Hamer" sign

The Local Politics of Fannie Lou Hamer

By age 44, most people are figuring out how to live and die peacefully. That was certainly not the case with sharecropper and hero Fannie Lou Hamer.
by Stefan M. Bradley via Black Perspectives on October 6, 2022
The American flag depicted upside down, in a beige color scheme.

Making the Constitution Safe for Democracy

The second section of the Fourteenth Amendment offers severe penalties for menacing the right to vote—if anyone can figure out how to enforce it.
by Anthony Conwright via The Forum on August 17, 2022
Illustration of Annette Gordon-Reed.

Majority Rule on the Brink

The legacies of our racial past, and the prospects ahead for an embattled republic.
by Annette Gordon-Reed, Chris Lehmann via The Forum on July 27, 2022
African American man casting a ballot following the Fifteenth Amendment.

Echoes of 1891 in 2022

Using the congressional filibuster to prevent voting rights legislation isn't new. It has roots in the 19th century.
by Daniel W. Crofts via Muster on January 25, 2022
Screen capture of Martin Luther King Jr. giving a press conference.

What Martin Luther King Jr. Said About the Filibuster: ‘A Minority of Misguided Senators’

The context in which King shared his views on the filibuster is the same one in which the Senate now finds itself: amid battles over voting rights legislation.
by Gillian Brockell via Retropolis on January 4, 2022
Ballots in sealed envelopes, in a plastic box with a sticker that reads "Vote NYC."
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You Didn’t Always Have to Be a Citizen to Vote in America

The electorate has consistently changed over time as politicians seek to shape it in their favor.
by Rachel Michelle Gunter via Made by History on December 29, 2021
People signing the declaration of independence

Our 250-Year Fight for Multiracial Democracy

We say we’re for it. We’ve never truly had it. These next few years will determine its fate.
by Matt Ford via The New Republic on May 17, 2021
Two women protesting voter suppression.
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The Lack of Federal Voting Rights Protections Returns Us to the Pre-Civil War Era

The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments tried to remove the power of the states to impede key rights.
by Kate Masur via Made by History on March 29, 2021
Civil rights era photo of young people protesting for voting rights in between black and white photos of black people lined up to vote

American Democracy Is Only 55 Years Old—And Hanging by a Thread

Black civil-rights activists—and especially Black women—delivered on the promise of the Founding. Their victories are in peril.
by Vann R. Newkirk II via The Atlantic on February 11, 2021
People holding protest signs

On the Fight for Black Voting Rights at the Turn of the 20th-Century

A rally at Faneuil Hall in support of the Fourteenth Amendment and congressional investigation of southern disfranchisement.
by Kerri K. Greenidge via Literary Hub on October 14, 2020

Black Political Activism and the Fight for Voting Rights in Missouri

Nick Sacco takes a moment to remember the 15th Amendment.
by Nick Sacco via Muster on September 29, 2020
"A National Game that is Played Out," political cartoon, engraving by Thomas Nast. From Harper's Weekly, 23 December 1876, page 1044.

Who Counts?

A look at voter rights through political cartoons.
via Massachusetts Historical Society on September 15, 2020

What Right to Vote? There’s a Lie at the Heart of American Democracy

The centennial of women’s suffrage which guaranteed all women the right to vote — has a lie at its very core.
by Lisa Tetrault via New York Daily News on August 22, 2020

Fannie Lou Hamer's Dauntless Fight for Black Americans' Right to Vote

The activist did not learn about her right to vote until she was 44, but once she did, she vigorously fought for black voting rights
by Keisha N. Blain via Smithsonian on August 20, 2020

The Achievements, and Compromises, of Two Reconstruction-era Amendments

While they advanced African American rights, they had serious flaws, Eric Foner writes.
by John Fabian Witt via Washington Post on October 31, 2019

Fighting to Vote

Voting rights are often associated with the Civil Rights Movement, but this fight extends throughout American history.
by Michael Tomasky via New York Review of Books on October 22, 2018
Voters casting ballots in 2008.

Why the Right to Vote is Not Enshrined in the Constitution

How voter suppression became a political weapon in American politics.
by Sean Illing, Allan J. Lichtman via Vox on September 17, 2018

Today’s Voter Suppression Tactics Have A 150 Year History

Rebels in the post-Civil War South perfected the art of excluding voters, but it was yankees in the North who developed the script.
by Gregory P. Downs via Talking Points Memo on July 26, 2018

How a Pivotal Voting Rights Act Case Broke America

In the five years since the landmark decision, the Supreme Court has set the stage for a new era of white hegemony.
by Vann R. Newkirk II via The Atlantic on July 10, 2018
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Voting Rights: A Retrospective

Voting, a right not initially enshrined in the Constitution, has been secured, revoked, and contested since the nation's founding era.

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