Right to Vote

1. Right to Vote Chapter 6

2. Voting Rights History Suffrage= Right to vote

3. Guiding Question: how have voting rights changed over the course of history? Goals • Expansion of the electorate occurred in 5 stages • Elimination of religious/property/tax qualifications • Addition of 15 amendment (no vote restrictions race/color) • Addition of 19 amendment (no restrictions based on sex) • Passage of civil rights laws (racial equality at polls) • Addition of 23/24/and 26 amendments (voting at 18) • States determine voting qualification but must not deny a person aged 18 or over the right to vote on the basis of race, color, or sex, nor may they impose a poll tax in federal elections

4. Voter Qualifications 6.2

5. Rights and responsibilities as citizens, democratic values/principles Where you live determines where you vote • Throughout our history, different states have imposed different qualifications for voting • The 3 current universal requirements are citizenship, residency, and age • People can be denied the right to vote based on mental incapability, imprisonment for some crimes, or dishonorable discharge from the armed forces • Literacy tests and poll taxes used to disenfranchise certain groups and have been eliminated

6. Poll Taxes • After the 15th amendment allowed everyone to vote, some states enacted a poll tax • Money paid to vote in an election, unless you were “grandfathered” in. • This disenfranchised African Americans, native Americans and the poor • 1964 the poll tax was abolished

7. Suffrage and Civil Rights 6.3

8. After the 15th amendment • 15th amendment of 1870 states right to vote can’t be denied to any citizen of the U.S. because of race, color or previous condition of servitude. • Civil Rights act of 1957- set up commission to determine violations of voter rights • Civil Rights act of 1964- outlawed discrimination in several areas, especially in jobs and forbids any voter registration or literacy requirement for voters • Voting rights act of 1965- stopped all poll taxes, no more literacy testing and voting officers were in place to see that everyone had the right to vote

9. Women's Suffrage A Timeline • 1848- first Women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls New York • 1869- Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form National Woman Suffrage Association • 1893- Colorado is the 1st state to amend and give women the right to vote • 1896- National Association of Colored Women • 1903- National Women’s Trade Union League • 1913- several protests including picketing the Whitehouse • 1916- Margaret Sanger opens the first Women’s birth control clinic in NYC. It is shut down after 10 days (reopens in 1923) • 1919-Womens suffrage amendment is written and sent to states for ratification • August 26, 1920- 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote is signed into law

10. Fighting for Equal Rights • Even though the constitution ensured that all men and WOMEN would have the same rights, women found themselves fighting for the right to cast a vote

11. Long road to freedom • How far would you go, to stop the injustice of your fellow man? • What if you were not served in a public establishment based on the color of your eyes? Or your gender? • Taking a bus ride from DC to New Orleans shouldn’t put your life in danger, but for 2 busses filled with people wanting to establish equality, it ended in intolerance, beatings and jail time.

12. Response to growing Civil Rights • After the Slaves were granted freedom, a new organization emerged known as the Klu Klux Klan. • There have been 3 “risings” of the KKK • The burning cross was introduced during the second rise, in the 1950’s and 60’s to show their close ties to Christianity

13. What do the struggles of suffragettes and people like Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks mean to us?