A lesson on voting rights — and suppression — during a pandemic that students won’t learn in textbooks

With a presidential election months away and uncertainty about whether and how the pandemic might affect it, here is a lesson for students and everybody else on the history of voter suppression in this country. It was written by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca, who has taught high school social studies since 2000. She is on the editorial board of Rethinking Schools, a nonprofit dedicated to improving public schools and a publisher of educational materials in the United States and many other countries. She is also the project organizer and curriculum writer for the nonprofit Zinn Education Project, which offers free downloadable lessons and articles organized by theme, time period and grade level.