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.
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.
Man is being carried by a lot of people while sitting on a chair

What Made Gilded Age Politics So Acrimonious?

Fearful of increasing participation, elites of the era attempted to rein in democracy.
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.
Chinese immigrants working in a market stop to pose for a photo

The California Klan’s Anti-Asian Crusade

Whereas southern Klansmen assaulted Black Americans and their white allies, western vigilantes targeted those they deemed a greater threat: Chinese immigrants.
Recruiting poster for USCT featuring a lithograph of African American soldiers.

In 1868, Black Suffrage Was on the Ballot

At the height of the Reconstruction, the pressing issue of the election was Black male suffrage.
Ulysses S. Grant statue in front of the capitol
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Grant — Not Lincoln or Roosevelt — May Hold the Key to Biden’s Success

Biden needs to stare down White supremacy, which requires strenuous enforcement of the laws.

Black Political Activism and the Fight for Voting Rights in Missouri

Nick Sacco takes a moment to remember the 15th Amendment.
Program for the National American Woman Suffrage Association procession in Washington, DC, 1913, featuring a woman on a horse heralding votes for women and leading marchers toward the capitol.

The Thorny Road to the 19th Amendment

A new book chronicles the twists and turns of the 75-year-path to securing the vote for women.

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

While they advanced African American rights, they had serious flaws, Eric Foner writes.
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Voter Fraud Isn’t a Problem in America. Low Turnout Is.

For centuries, voter fraud has been used as an excuse to restrict the vote.

Welcome To Jim Crow 2.0

Georgia GOP candidate Brian Kemp is using a tried-and-tested formula designed to erode and corrode American democracy.

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.
A prison cell with a television tuned to election coverage.
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Why Felon Disenfranchisement Doesn't Violate the Constitution

The justification can be found in an obscure section of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Racist Roots of Virginia's Felon Disenfranchisement

A century ago, the commonwealth's leaders weren't circumspect about their motives.

The Price of Union

The undefeatable South.

Killing Reconstruction

During Reconstruction, elites used racist appeals to silence calls for redistribution and worker empowerment.
Photo of Jimmy Lee Jackson.

The Killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson

How a post-Civil War massacre impacted racial justice in America.
This editorial cartoon from a January 1879 edition of Harper's Weekly depicting a white man misspelling words on a sign announcing Black voters must pass a literacy test, while a Black man looks on laughing.

The Racial History Of The 'Grandfather Clause'

Companies and individuals are considered grandfathered and exempt from new sets of regulations all the time. But the term and the concept dates to a darker era.
Portrait of Lydia Maria Child reading a book. Courtesy the Smithsonian/NMAAHC

Lydia Maria Child and the Vexed Role of the Woman Abolitionist

Taking up arms against slavery, the famous novelist foreshadowed the vexed role of the white woman activist today.