Backstory Radio
Backstory Radio: Pulling the Curtain: Voting in America
Election day audio segment on the history of voting in America looks at voting patterns and puts current voting trends perspective. Audio and transcript are provided.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: Greek and Roman Ideas About Voting
The Greeks and Romans believed that voters needed to have an economic investment in their communities, e.g., by owning property, in order to vote thoughtfully.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: Fifteenth Amendment: Threats and Violence
Even though African Americans were given the right to vote after the Civil War, most experienced barriers to voting and did not exercise this right until the civil rights movement one hundred years later.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: Episode 172 Property Requirement for Voting
On today's podcast, we discuss the property requirement for voting in the American colonies.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: Voting Rights in the American Colonies
The right to vote in the American colonies was limited to property owners, and although a wider subset of the population could vote than in Britain, many groups were still excluded.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: Deciding Who Can Vote
The Constitutional Convention left it to the states to decide who was eligible to vote.This meant that struggles to win the right to vote first happened in individual states.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: New Jersey's Early Liberal Voting Requirements
New Jersey was one state where conflict emerged over voting requirements. Some African American residents and women who were initially allowed to vote were later disenfranchised.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: The Property Requirement
Being able to vote in the days of the early American government meant that the voter had to own property. This requirement was gradually removed.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: The Dorr Rebellion
Covers the history of voting in Rhode Island during the 1840s, when Thomas Wilson Dorr led a rebellion against voting laws which left many white males disenfranchised.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: Voting Rights: Violence Against Mexican Americans
Despite being given the right to vote in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexican Americans were the target of violence and racism, and were subject to tactics similar to African Americans, e.g., literacy tests, to prevent them from voting.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: Fifteenth Amendment and Suffrage
While the Fifteenth Amendment was meant to clear the way for disenfranchised groups to vote, most Southern and some other states put obstacles in place to prevent African Americans from exercising their right to vote.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: Woman Suffrage: Part 1
The struggle of women to win the right to vote was linked to that of African Americans, and they often worked together for common goals.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: Woman Suffrage: Part 2
Leaders in the women's suffragette movement tried to win the right to vote with the passing of the 14th Amendment, but were denied it.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: Woman Suffrage: Part 3
In 1872 women tried to vote and, when they could not, they took their case to the judicial system.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: Woman Suffrage: Part 4
Wyoming was among the first to give women the right to vote, and through the efforts of leaders in the suffrage movement, over half the states had followed suit by 1918.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: Woman Suffrage: Part 5
The changing roles of women in World War I gave added momentum to women's struggle for the right to vote, eventually leading to the 19th Amendment.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: Native Americans and Voting: Part 1
Native Americans were perceived in the Constitution as non-citizens and were not allowed to vote or receive representation in the government.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: Native Americans and Voting: Part 2
Even with the passing of the Fourteenth Amendment, Native Americans were not recognized as full citizens of the United States, so still could not vote.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: Native Americans and Voting: Part 3
A series of government acts, beginning with the Dawes Act in 1887, offered citizenship to Native Americans, with the aim of destabilizing tribal governments and absorbing Native Americans into mainstream society.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: Native Americans and Voting: Part 4
Native Americans faced many obstacles to the enjoyment of full citizenship rights even after the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. It was not until the 1960s that Congress enacted legislation to ensure that they and other minority groups...
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: Native Americans and Voting: Part 5
The 24th Amendment of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 addressed inequalities in voting rights for Native Americans and other minority groups, and removed blocks such as literacy tests and language fluency.
Center For Civic Education
60 Second Civics: Eighteen Year Olds and the Vote
Describes how eighteen-year-olds won the right to vote, and the passing of the 26th Amendment by Congress.