Items tagged Voting (37 total)

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This illustration from Harper's Weekly features three figures symbolizing black political leadership: a skilled craftsman, a sophisticated city dweller, and a Union Army veteran.

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Item Type: Poster/Print
Date: 1867

Prior to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, many southern (and some western) states had devised "literacy tests" and other voting requirements whose primary purpose was to deny African Americans the vote. The tests consisted of written and oral questions about often-obscure aspects of state law and the United States Constitution. They…

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Item Type: Pamphlet
Date: Circa 1965

The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) was a coalition of civil rights organizations that formed in Mississippi in 1962 to coordinate voter registration efforts and broader equal rights reforms. In 1964, COFO launched Freedom Summer, in which thousands of local black Mississippians and hundreds of black and white students from out of state…

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Item Type: Pamphlet
Date: Circa 1963

Fannie Lou Hamer, the last of 20 children and a Mississippi tenant farmer, leapt to national prominence during the 1964 Democratic National Convention, when she eloquently challenged Mississippi's segregated Democratic primary on national television. In 1962, she had become a leader of the African-American voting rights movement in Mississippi that…

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Item Type: Oral History
Date: 1972

The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) enlisted young people and local leaders to register and encourage southern African Americans to vote during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Because the young organizers faced tremendous risks by challenging segregation and encouraging people to vote, the group earned a reputation as the…

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Item Type: Oral History
Date: 1995

Writing to his friend, James Sullivan, who was a member of the Massachusetts General Court, Adams sets forth his arguments against giving women, children, and property-less men the right to vote.

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Item Type: Diary/Letter
Date: 1776

William (Willie) Velásquez founded the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project (SVREP) in 1974. The son of a butcher from San Antonio, Texas, he spent his adult life as a community organizer and political activist. Inspired by the African-American civil rights movement, he sought to inform and empower Mexican Americans about the…

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Item Type: Article/Essay
Date: 2004