Curated OER
Qualifying to Vote Under Jim Crow
Literacy tests, poll taxes, grandfather laws? Scholars study the systematic ways African-Americans were kept from voting even after it was made a law. They analyze a series of primary source documents, complete a worksheet, and engaged...
Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of American History: Separate Is Not Equal: White Only
This section from the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History's exhibition Separate Is Not Equal: Brown v. Board of Education gives the history of Jim Crow laws and how they affected not only the voting rights of...
Thomson Reuters
Find Law: u.s. Constitution: Annotation 1: Fifteenth Amendment
This resource gives the text of the Fifteenth Amendment with annotations. The paragraph on literacy tests includes information on Alabama's amendment which was clearly aimed at African Americans.
Thomson Reuters
Find Law: u.s. Supreme Court: Lassiter v. Northhampton Election Bd (1959)
This is the Supreme Court case that found the literacy test unconstitutional in 1959.
Curated OER
History Matters: Atlanta Compromise Speech, 1895
Read an excerpt from Booker T. Washington's 1895 Atlanta Compromise speech, in which he stresses accommodation rather than resistance as way to deal with racism. Includes a short audio clip - the only surviving recording of Washington's...
Other
Civil Rights Movement 1955 1965: Mississippi & Freedom Summer
Take a look at Mississippi in the early 1960s to understand why the focus of African American voter registration targeted that state. Read about the organization and implementation of the Mississippi Summer Project in 1964. See also the...
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Classroom: Voting Rights
This website contains an interactive timeline about the history of voting rights in the United States.
PBS
Wnet: Thirteen: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow: Voting Then, Voting Now
This site explores the voting experiences for African Americans beginning in the Jim Crow era. It shares literacy tests African Americans had to take and other challenges they were given for the right to vote. This denial of the right to...
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: Rebuilding the Old Order
Reconstruction in the South engendered corruption, greed, a poor economy, and a backlash against the idea of allowing freed slaves to take part in political and civic life. Read about the formation of paramilitary groups who attempted to...
PBS
Pbs: American Experience: Congressman George White
This page from PBS "The American Experience" relates the story of Congressman George White, the last African American congressman in 1900 who chose to retire rather than face certain defeat in the next election. He had ascertained that...