Voting Rights Archives

Reconstructing the South: A Role Play

Lesson. By Bill Bigelow. 17 pages.
This role play engages students in thinking about what freedpeople needed in order to achieve — and sustain — real freedom following the Civil War. It's followed by a chapter from the book Freedom's Unfinished Revolution.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

The Voting Rights Act: Ten Things You Should Know

Article. By Emilye Crosby and Judy Richardson. 2015.
Key points in the history of the 1965 Voting Rights Act missing from most textbooks.

Teaching Activity by Emilye Crosby

Lowndes County and the Voting Rights Act

Article. By Hasan Kwame Jeffries.
History and significance of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization.

Celebration of the 15th Ammendment | Zinn Education Project

The 15th Amendment

Teaching materials and guides on the 15th Amendment's significance in 2020 — its 150th anniversary and an election year.

Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt

Book — Non-fiction. By Hasan Kwame Jeffries. 2010. 372 pages.
History of the role that activists in Lowndes County played in spurring Black activists nationwide to fight for civil and human rights in new and more radical ways.

On the Road to Voting Rights: Freedom Day in Selma, 1963

Article. By Howard Zinn. Excerpt from Chapter 5 of You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train.
Howard Zinn’s first-hand account of Selma’s Freedom Day in 1963.

One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy

Book — Non-fiction. By Carol Anderson. 2018. 368 pages.
This history of voter suppression highlights the aftermath and challenges to the 2013 Supreme Court ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Stolen Justice: The Struggle for African American Voting Rights

Book — Non-fiction. By Lawrence Goldstone. 2020. 288 pages.
This young adult book documents the long and ongoing struggle for voting rights for African Americans.

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.

John Lewis in the Lead: A Story of the Civil Rights Movement

Picture book. By Jim Haskins and Kathleen Benson. Illustrated by Benny Andrews. 2006. 32 pages.
The life of Civil Rights Movement activist and Congressman John Lewis.

The Colored Conventions Movement: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Gabrielle Foreman, Jim Casey, and Sarah Patterson. Introduction by P. Gabrielle Foreman. 2021.
This volume of essays is the first to focus on the Colored Conventions movement, the nineteenth century’s longest campaign for Black civil rights.

Freedom Summer 1964

Profile. Summer initiative to register African American voters in Mississippi.

The Sugar Shack | Zinn Education Project

Aug. 6, 1965: Voting Rights Act

The Voting Rights Act was signed into law.

Men searching through rubble after the Galveston hurricane. Source: Library of Congress

Sept. 8, 1900: Galveston Hurricane

An unexpected hurricane crashed into the Gulf Coast and devastated Galveston, Texas, leaving thousands of people dead and even more left houseless. The storm’s turmoil and destruction allowed white terror and fraud to flourish.

March 2, 1867: Congress Passes First of Four Reconstruction Acts

Congress overrode President Andrew Johnson’s veto and passed the first of four statutes known as the Reconstruction Acts, which outlined the process of readmission to the Union.

Feb. 29, 2000: “Granny D” Completes Walk for Campaign Finance Reform

“Granny D” Haddock completed a 3200 miles walk from California to Washington, D.C. to call for reform of the U.S. system of campaign finance.

Freedom Day in Hattiesburg, Mississippi

Article. By Howard Zinn. From Chapter 6 of You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train.
Zinn describes the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) voting rights campaign called Freedom Day in Hattiesburg, Miss.

Women & Gender Toolkit: A SNCC Digital Gateway Companion

Book — Non-fiction. By SNCC Digital Gateway. 2024. 22 pages.
Provides concrete ways for people to engage with and learn about SNCC’s work and the role of women within SNCC, explore primary source materials, and connect contemporary issues in their own lives and communities to central themes in SNCC’s history.