DocsTeach
American Indian Voting Rights through History
Vote ... it's your right! An enlightening lesson examines the history of voting rights for Native Americans. Leaners analyze primary documents and place them in chronological order. Academics also create a list of other events that took...
DocsTeach
The Path of Justice: Selma and the Voting Rights Act
The civil rights movement: An ongoing battle for change. The activity focuses on President Johnson's speech in response to the massacre at the Selma March. Academics study the speech, complete a hands-on-activity, and discuss President...
DocsTeach
Fannie Lou Hamer and Voting Rights
To understand the challenges Black voters faced in Mississippi, middle schoolers first gather background information about Fannie Lou Hamer and then read her testimony given during the 1964 Democratic Nation Convention. After a...
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Suppressing the Vote
Voting rights have expanded over time, but some voters are still being suppressed. A thought-provoking resource explores the history of voter suppression in the US and efforts to remove roadblocks to voting. Young historians learn about...
DocsTeach
The 19th Amendment and the Road to Universal Suffrage
Your vote matters! An informative activity focuses on the Nineteenth Amendment and explains how it paved the way for universal voting rights. Young historians analyze several documents and a complete a worksheet, describing the impact of...
DocsTeach
Analyzing a Letter to Congress About Bloody Sunday
The brutality of Bloody Sunday—when non-violent protesters who supported voting rights for African Americans were beaten by police—captured a nation. Young historians examine the letter of one horrified American to Congress to consider...
DocsTeach
To What Extent was Reconstruction a Revolution? (Part 2)
While Reconstruction laid the groundwork, many believe its revolutionary ideals weren't realized until the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Using the 1965 Voting Rights Act, budding historians consider why it took more than 100 years to...
US National Archives
Susan B. Anthony and the Struggle for Suffrage
Susan B. Anthony was willing to break the law to gain voting rights for women. Young historians investigate Anthony's willingness to go to jail to draw attention to the suffrage movement. They read and discuss primary source documents to...
DocsTeach
Extending Suffrage to Women
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...
DocsTeach
Suffrage Photograph Analysis
Votes for women! Young scholars use images to explore the suffrage movement and its impact on the United States. Historians work in groups or pairs to interpret the photograph, complete a worksheet, and discuss how their opinions of the...
DocsTeach
Why Did Women Want the Right to Vote?
No taxation without representation may have been the battle cry of the American Revolution, but women used the same argument when demanding their right to vote in the late 1800 and early 1900s. Young historians examine petitions from...
DocsTeach
Mrs. Bloomer's 'Political Disability'
It's hard to believe that women had to argue for the right to vote a mere 100 years ago. Today, young historians can examine their case left behind in primary sources. Using a letter from a woman who claimed she should be able to vote...
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Constitutional Rights Foundation: Race and Voting in the Segregated South
Article and activity in which students read and analyze the historic challenges faced by African Americans as they sought to gain an unimpeded right to vote in the segregated South followed by activity asking students to evaluate current...
National Geographic
National Geographic: The Impact of the Jfk Assassination on American Politics
Students investigate the impact John F. Kennedy's assassination has had on American politics since that event. After his death, Lyndon B. Johnson pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act, both of which had...
Library of Congress
Loc: America's Story: The First March From Selma
This article details a key event in the civil rights struggle--the demonstration organized by the Rev. Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965, when 525 people met a police blockade on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Aftermath: African American Women and the Vote
Though the suffrage movement failed to exclude African-American women, and many obstacles came in the way of their voting (e.g., poll taxes, literacy tests, etc.), "African-American women were not strangers to community activism." Learn...
Other
Ipu: Women's Suffrage
American women could run for election in 1788, but could not vote until 1920. This and other ironies are revealed in this timeline that shows the progression of women's political rights in countries from around the world.
Library of Congress
Loc: Draft of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's "The Woman's Bible"
This article focuses on the philosophy and strategies of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as well as the fight for women's right to vote.
Library of Congress
Loc: America's Story: Nineteenth Amendment
There was a time in the United States when voting was only for white men who owned property. This Library of Congress site tells you about the days when American women fought for their right to vote. Includes high quality historic images.
Other
Humanists of Utah: Lucy Stone (1818 1893)
This site provides a brief biography of Lucy Stone, famous for her leadership in the suffrage and abolitionist movements.