1. Voting Rights

2. SUFFRAGE
The right to vote

3. POLL TAX
A fee (money) people had to pay in order to vote in local, state, and national elections.
Ended in 1964 with the 24th Amendment

4. POLL TAX for African Americans
Kept from Voting:
Not able to afford

5. LITERACY TESTS Testing a citizen’s ability to read and write
Most were actually tests about government
Commonly used in the USA, especially the “Jim Crow” era South, to keep non-Whites from voting

6. LITERACY TESTS for African Americans
Kept from voting:
No education – not literate, not know information
Local agency scored tests as Failed regardless of performance

7. GRANDFATHER CLAUSE
It stated that all men or their descendants who were able to vote BEFORE 1867 did not have to meet the (Poll) tax, educational (Literacy Test), or property ownership requirements for voting.
This clause let all white males vote while not allowing black men and other men of color to vote.
It was created to try to get around the 15th Amendment.

8. GRANDFATHER CLAUSE for African Americans
Kept from voting:
Grandfathers were slaves
Grandfathers not able to vote even if freed person of color

9. 13th Amendment
Ended slavery in 1865

10. 14th Amendment (1868)
Provided citizenship rights to those born or naturalized in the USA.
States could not make laws that take away a person’s rights.
States must follow the same Due Process that the Federal government does.
States must protect everyone the same way

11. EQUAL PROTECTION CLAUSE
All US citizens are supposed to be protected by the State and Federal governments equally, no matter their race, color, religious beliefs, etc.
Was supposed to end discrimination of blacks by the government.

12. 15th Amendment (1870)
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Designed to allow former slaves (called Freedmen) the right to vote
During Reconstruction time period in the South many former Confederates and pro-slavery forces tried to stop former slaves from their right to vote
Also extended the right to vote to new immigrant groups that have come into the USA since the 1870’s

13. SEGREGATION The legal separation of the races
It was most common in the post-Reconstruction Southern states

14. “JIM CROW” LAWS Laws common in the South after 1880.
Required all non-Whites to use separate facilities.
Some of these facilities included schools, water fountains, bathrooms, trains and buses

15. Some Examples of Jim Crow Laws

16. “Separate, but Equal” Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Homer Plessy, a Creole (7/8 white and 1/8 black-He had a black great grandparent), got on a Whites Only train car and was arrested.
This was done on purpose

17. “Separate, but Equal” Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Pt. 2
He was arrested and tried in court.
His lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court ruled against Plessy and stated the famous phrase “Separate but equal”
This meant that “Colored” people could be discriminated against as long as the facilities involved were “equal”
This was a HUGE blow to civil rights for non-Whites in the USA and especially the South
This decision basically legalized “Jim Crow” laws

18. Plessey v. Ferguson (con’t)

20. Does this seem “Equal?”

21. Does this seem “Equal?”

22. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954)

23. Brown v. Board
Linda Brown had to walk six blocks to catch a bus to take her to a “Blacks only” school a mile away.
There was a “Whites only” school just seven blocks from her house.
Her parents sued the district when she was refused enrollment in the “Whites only” school.

24. Brown v. Board Pt. 2 The case is argued by Thurgood Marshal.
He would later go on to become the first African American Supreme Court Justice.
The case overturned the Plessy decision and the Court ruled the separate was NOT equal.
This paved the way for all public schools to become integrated (all colors could go there – also known as desegregation)

25. 19th Amendment (1920)
Women win the right to vote through the efforts of “Suffragettes”
Suffragettes were women who fought for the right to vote
The battle for Women’s suffrage was going on at the same time in England and in the US

26. Sojourner Truth
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (seated)
Many women could vote in Western States but could not vote back East, like these women in New York City

27. 26th Amendment (1971) 18 year olds are given the right to vote
The amendment was created in response to student protests about being drafted into the Army at 18 but not being able to vote for the Congressmen who sent them to war until they were 21.

28. REGISTER To sign up with the government to vote. You must be 18.
You must be a US citizen to register.
You can not be in jail or on parole in NJ.
You must live in the state, county and town where you are registered.