How difficult was it for everyone to get voting rights? Understanding voting rights and the fight to get them for everyone in the United States can be tricky for some learners. However, they are clarified after engaging in the...

Ambitiously spanning American history from 1865 to 1941, this video discusses and clarifies topics such as women's suffrage, the sinking of the Maine, and the development of America as a world empire. Maps and photographs will engage...

Gaining voting rights was difficult over the course of decades, but the debate over who should actually be allowed to cast a ballot remains. Scholars explore the history of the struggle, including the fifteenth and nineteenth amendments,...

It was not just the states of the Deep South that practiced segregation. Young historians investigate the history of segregation and desegregation in Oklahoma. They begin by reading, annotating, and analyzing an article about the impacts...

The debate over voting rights continues. To begin their study of voting rights, class members first vote on proposed new classroom rules. After a discussion of the activity, groups are given a copy of the 1965 Alabama Literacy Test and...

Young journalists analyze how The Topeka State Journal, the Jackson Daily News, and The Providence Journal reported on the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v Board of Education. Scholars scrutinize the headlines, photographs,...

Reconstruction amendments: a helping hand or another form of slavery? An inquisitive lesson compares the Reconstruction legislation that ended slavery, granted citizenship, and protected voting right for African American men. Scholars...

The National Women's History Museum offers a 20-slide presentation that details the history of the Women's Suffrage Movement from its creation in the 1830s through the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.

Votes for women! The activity highlights the push for the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote. High school scholars learn how the Fifteenth Amendment giving African American men the right to vote helped to spark the...

Despite the passing of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, as well as the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the struggle to ensure fair voter registration and election procedures continues. Young historians...

Fifteen primary sources provide a context for a study of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The packet captures the excitement for the changes promised by the amendment as well as the backlash against it.

Despite some advances made during the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War, the period from 1887 through 1929, African Americans serving in Congress suffered severe setbacks due to Jim Crow Laws and voter suppression. Class members...

The reading of a contextual essay launches a study of Black Americans who served in Congress from 1870 through 1887. Young historians identify the African Americans who served during this period, investigate the ways they won national...

The legacy of Reconstruction and the Freedman's Bureau is complicated. Using an interactive web resource, learners literally weigh the evidence using an online program in primary sources such as labor contracts and marriage records to...

What do a photo of Abraham Lincoln, a map for the Battle of Antietam, and the Dred Scott decision all have in common? Learners consider the broader question as they examine documents related to civil rights during the Civil War and...

Explore what voting rights really are in an intriguing lesson that explores the history of American voting. The resource examines the timeline of voting rights in the United States with group discussions, hands-on-activities, and...

An 11-question online quiz permits young historians to check their knowledge of the history of voting rights in the United States. After reading a short introduction, individuals click through the questions that test their knowledge of...

The final lesson in the seven-resource Reconstruction Era collection examines the legacies of Reconstruction. Class members investigate why the period has been called an "unfinished revolution," "a splendid failure," and "the second...

Memories of and interpretations of history change—that's the key takeaway from a instructional activity that has young historians compare the story of the Reconstruction Era as told by the historians of the Dunning School to the view of...

Revolution and counterrevolution. Protest and counter-protest. Collaborators and bystanders. The focus of the fifth resource in the Reconstruction Era and Fragility of Democracy series is on the political violence that followed Radical...

Radical Reconstruction, the 10-year period referred to after Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, saw the establishment of manhood suffrage, men voting without any racial qualifications. Southern states also rewrote their...