This Day in History

Jan. 5, 2021: Grassroots Organizing Shifts Balance of Power in Senate

Time Periods: 2001-, 21st Century

Themes: African American, Organizing, Voting Rights

On January 5, 2021 two new Democratic lawmakers from Georgia were elected to the U.S. Senate — Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Raphael Warnock is only the 11th African American senator in U.S. history.

The election took place in the face of widespread white supremacist voter suppression. The victory can be credited to the daily, smart, and creative organizing of voting rights activists, led by Black women like Stacey Abrams, Deborah Scott, Felicia Davis, Helen Butler, Nsé Ufot, and countless others in organizations such as the New Georgia Project, Black Voters Matter, Fair Fight, Mijente, and more.

Photo by Stephen Melkisethian via Flickr

To teach students about grassroots anti-racist organizing and the long struggle for voting rights, we recommend Teaching SNCC: The Organization at the Heart of the Civil Rights Revolution, a series of role plays that explore the history and evolution of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, including freedom rides and voter registration, and Who Gets to Vote? Teaching About the Struggle for Voting Rights in the United States, a unit with three lessons on voting rights, including the history of the struggle against voter suppression. Find these lessons and more below.

Related Resources

Teaching Activities (Free)

Teaching With Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. 25 pages.
Students engage in an interactive activity with short excerpts from Martha Jones’ book to learn about the leading role of Black women in the fight for voting rights throughout U.S. history.

Teaching Activities (Free)

Who Gets to Vote? Teaching About the Struggle for Voting Rights in the United States

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. 2020.
Unit with three lessons on voting rights, including the history of the struggle against voter suppression in the United States.

Articles

What Our Students Should Know About the Struggle for the Ballot — but Won’t Learn from Their Textbooks

By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

From voter ID laws to voter-roll purges, gerrymandering to poll closures to the deadly in-person voting conditions during a pandemic, the right to vote is under attack and the stakes are high. It is critical that students learn about the fight for voting rights, past and present.

Picture Books

Evicted!: The Struggle for the Right to Vote

Picture book. By Alice Faye Duncan and illustrated by Charly Palmer. 2022. 64 pages.
This critical civil rights book for middle-graders examines the little-known Tennessee’s Fayette County Tent City Movement in the late 1950s and reveals what is possible when people unite and fight for the right to vote.

Books: Non-Fiction

One Person, No Vote (YA edition): How Not All Voters Are Treated Equally

Book — Non-fiction. By Carol Anderson with Tonya Bolden. 2019. 288 pages.
A young readers edition of Anderson’s voter suppression analysis and history, One Person, No Vote.

Books: Non-Fiction

Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All

Book — Non-fiction. By Martha S. Jones. 2021. 368 pages.
This book excavates the lives and work of Black women from the earliest days of the republic to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and beyond.

This Day in History

Dec. 9, 1867: Georgia Constitutional Convention

The Georgia Constitutional Convention was held with 33 African Americans and 137 white attendees.

Affidavit of Philip Joiner, Albany, Georgia, Sept. 23, 1868.

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Sept. 19, 1868: Camilla Massacre

As African Americans marched peacefully in response to their expulsion from elected office, more than a dozen were massacred near Albany, Georgia.

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Dec. 12, 1870: Joseph H. Rainey First African-American in U.S. House of Reps

Joseph H. Rainey, from South Carolina, was the first African-American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.

This Day in History

Oct. 19, 1870: First African Americans Elected to the House of Representatives

For the first time, African Americans were elected to the House of Representatives in 1870.

Julian Bond 1967 | Zinn Education Project

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Jan. 19, 1966: Georgia State House Refused to Seat Julian Bond

The Georgia State House of Representatives refused to seat elected state representative Julian Bond due to his public statements against the Vietnam War.