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Suffrage and Civil Rights
Objectives
Why It Matters
1. Describe the 15th Amendment and the
tactics used to circumvent it in an effort to
deny African Americans the vote.
2. Explain the significance of the early civil
rights legislation passed in 1957, 1960,
and 1964.
3. Analyze the provisions and effects of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The 15th Amendment declared that the right
to vote cannot be denied on account of race.
Nevertheless, a variety of tactics were used
in southern States to disenfranchise African
Americans. The Supreme Court struck down
a number of these efforts, and, beginning in
the 1950s, Congress passed laws to protect
minority voting rights.
ow important is the right to vote? For those
who do not have it, that right can seem as
important as life itself. Indeed, in the Deep South
of the 1960s, civil rights workers suffered arrest,
beatings, shocks with electric cattle prods, even
death—all in the name of the right to vote. Their
efforts inspired the nation and led to large-scale
federal efforts to secure suffrage for African
Americans and other minority groups in the
United States.
H
The Fifteenth Amendment
The effort to extend the franchise to African
Americans began with the 15th Amendment,
which was ratified in 1870. It declares that the
right to vote cannot be denied to any citizen of
the United States because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The amendment was
plainly intended to ensure that African American
men, nearly all of them former slaves and nearly
all of them living in the South, could vote.
The 15th Amendment is not self-executing,
however. In other words, simply stating a general
principle without providing for a means to
enforce implementation was not enough to carry
out the intention of the amendment. To make it
effective, Congress had to act. Yet for almost
90 years the Federal Government paid little
attention to voting rights for African Americans.
During that period, African Americans were
generally and systematically kept from the polls
Political
Dictionary
★ gerrymandering
★ injunction
★ preclearance
in much of the South. White supremacists
employed a number of tactics to that end. Their
major weapon was violence. Other tactics
included more subtle threats and social pressures, such as firing an African American man
who tried to register or vote, or denying his
family credit at local stores.
More formal “legal” devices were used, as
well. The most effective were literacy tests.
White officials regularly manipulated these tests
to disenfranchise African American citizens.
Registration laws served the same end. As
written, they applied to all potential voters. In
practice, however, they were often administered
to keep African Americans from qualifying to
vote. Poll taxes, “white primaries,” gerrymandering, and several other devices were also regularly used to disenfranchise African Americans.
Gerrymandering is the practice of drawing electoral district lines (the boundaries of the geographic area from which a candidate is elected
to a public office) in order to limit the voting
strength of a particular group or party.
The white primary arose out of the
decades-long Democratic domination of politics in the South. It
was almost a given that the
Democratic candidate for an
An African American woman
registers to vote.
3
Suffrage and Civil
Rights
Objectives You may wish to call
students’ attention to the objectives
in the Section Preview. The objectives
are reflected in the main headings of
the section.
Bellringer Ask students whether
they have ever crossed a city street
against the light or outside of a
crosswalk, and if they have ever been
fined for doing so. Tell them that
many cities and larger towns have
jaywalking laws, but they are often
not rigorously enforced. Explain that
in this section, they will learn about
a constitutional amendment that was
not enforced for nearly a century.
Vocabulary Builder Draw an
absurdly irregular shape on the
board. Tell students that this shape
shows the boundaries of a congressional district. Ask them which term
in the Political Dictionary names a
procedure that could result in a district with this shape.
Lesson Plan
Teaching the Main Ideas
L3
1. Focus Tell students that the 15th
Amendment was ratified in 1870 but
was not truly effective until 1965.
Ask them to discuss what they know
about the amendment and the laws
that eventually gave it some force.
2. Instruct Ask students how some
States used gerrymandering to get
around the provisions of the 15th
Amendment. Discuss this and other
similar tactics and the laws that
eventually arose to combat them.
3. Close/Reteach Remind students
that the 15th Amendment gave African
Americans the right to vote—in theory.
Ask students how the Voting Rights Act
helped turn that theory into practice.
Block Scheduling Strategies
Consider these for
suggestions to manage extended
Customize
class time:
More
Advanced
■ Have
studentsStudents
write an editorial that could
havestudents
appeared
in theresearch
1950s or
1960s,
Have
conduct
to early
investigate
the
condemning
Amendment’s
lack(You
of
changing
role ofthe
the15th
Speaker
of the House.
enforcement.
Editorials
shoulda include
specific
may
wish to assign
each student
specific speaker.)
examples
of
discrimination
against
African
Ask students to summarize their research in brief
Americans,
as lead
described
in the on
section.
Have
reports
and then
a discussion
the changing
students share their editorials with the class.
role.
■ Divide the class into small groups. Provide
groups with several scenarios involving discrimination. Then have students determine whether
each would be legal, using the civil rights or
voting rights legislation described in this section.
Ask each group to present its reasoning to the
rest of the class.
159
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6 • Section 3
Reading Strategy
Self-Monitoring
Tell students that they will be reading
about a number of laws enacted to
protect minority voting rights. Some
of the laws are complex. Suggest that
students ask themselves, as they read,
whether the material makes sense to
them. If not, they should reread the
passage or read ahead a little to see
if their confusion is cleared up.
The Enduring
Constitution
Government by the People
The 26th Amendment, granting 18year-olds the right to vote, was ratified
on July 1, 1971. Much of the support
for the amendment grew out of the
civil rights and antiwar protest movements of the era. Many young people
objected to the fact that they were
old enough to fight and die in the
Vietnam War, but not old enough to
use the ballot box to voice their opinions on international and domestic
issues.
office would be elected. Therefore, almost
always, it was only the Democrats who nominated candidates, generally in primaries. In
several southern States, political parties were
defined by law as “private associations.” As
such, they could exclude whomever they chose,
and the Democrats regularly refused to admit
African Americans. Because only party members
could vote in the party’s primary, African
Americans were then excluded from a critical
step in the public election process.
The Supreme Court finally outlawed the white
primary in a case from Texas, Smith v. Allwright,
1944. The Court held that nominations are an
integral part of the election process. Consequently, when a political party holds a primary
it is performing a public function and it is, therefore, bound by the terms of the 15th Amendment.
The Supreme Court outlawed gerrymandering
when used for purposes of racial discrimination
in a case from Alabama, Gomillion v. Lightfoot,
in 1960. In this case, the Alabama legislature
had redrawn the electoral district boundaries of
Tuskegee, effectively excluding all blacks from
the city limits. The Court ruled that the legislature’s act violated the 15th Amendment because
the irregularly shaped district clearly was created
to deprive blacks of political power.
Point-of-Use Resources
The Enduring Constitution Two
extension activities for this time
line can be found on pp. 11–12.
Basic Principles of the Constitution
Transparencies Transparency 2, The
Enduring Constitution: Expanding
Suffrage
160
Early Civil Rights Legislation
The first law passed by Congress to implement
the 15th Amendment was the Civil Rights Act
of 1957, which set up the United States Civil
Rights Commission. One of the Commission’s
major duties is to inquire into claims of voter
discrimination. The Commission reports its
findings to Congress and the President and,
through the media, to the public. The Act also
gave the attorney general the power to seek
federal court orders to prevent interference
with any person’s right to vote in any federal
election.
The Enduring
Constitution
Using the Time Line
Historians argue that the spread of
democracy has not been automatic,
but has depended on the active
demands of those excluded from
participating in the political process.
Review and discuss some of the civil
rights struggles that brought about
the voting reforms shown on the
time line, such as woman suffrage.
Then explore some of the ways
young people can participate in the
political process. Point out that
more information about the expansion of suffrage in the United States
is available at PHSchool.com
Led by these decisions of the Supreme Court,
the lower federal courts struck down many of
the practices designed to disenfranchise African
Americans in the 1940s and 1950s. Still, the
courts could act only when those who claimed
to be victims of discrimination sued. That caseby-case method was, at best, agonizingly slow.
Finally, and largely in response to the civil
rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., Congress was moved to act. It has passed several civil rights laws since the late 1950s. Those
statutes contain a number of sections specifically
intended to implement the 15th Amendment.
Government by the People
When the Constitution was written, only white
male property owners could vote. Over time, the
United States has become more and more democratic. The major features of that evolution are
chronicled in this time line.
1900
1870
15th Amendment—
designed mainly to give former
slaves the right to vote—
protects the voting right of adult
male citizens of every race.
1913
17th Amendment
calls for members of
the U.S. Senate to be
elected directly by
the people instead of
by State legislatures.
PHSchool.com
Use Web Code mqp-2067 to
register your vote on this
issue and to see how other
students voted.
Preparing for Standardized Tests
Have students read the passages under The Fifteenth Amendment on
pp. 159–160 and then answer the question below.
Why was the 15th Amendment ineffective for decades in ensuring the right
of African Americans to vote?
A Congress did nothing to implement it.
B Its wording was unclear and confusing.
C African Americans did not exercise their right to vote.
D Supreme Court decisions weakened the amendment.
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The Civil Rights Act of 1960 added an
additional safeguard. It provided for the
appointment of federal voting referees. These
officers were to serve anywhere a federal court
found voter discrimination. They were given
the power to help qualified persons to register
and vote in federal elections.
Dramatic events in Selma, Alabama, soon
pointed up the shortcomings of this approach.
Dr. King mounted a voter registration drive in
that city in early 1965. He and his supporters
hoped that they could focus national attention
on the issue of African American voting rights—
and they most certainly did.
Their registration efforts were met with
insults and violence by local white civilians, by
city and county police, and then by State troopers. Two civil rights workers were murdered,
and many were beaten when they attempted a
peaceful march to the State capitol. The nation
saw much of the drama on television and was
shocked. An outraged President Lyndon Johnson
urged Congress to pass new and stronger legislation to ensure the voting rights of African
Americans. Congress responded quickly.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is much broader
and much more effective than either of the two
earlier measures. It outlaws discrimination in
several areas, especially in job-related matters.
With regard to voting rights, its most important section forbids the use of any voter registration or literacy requirement in an unfair or
discriminatory manner.
The 1964 law continued a pattern set in the
earlier laws. In major part, it relied on judicial
action to overcome racial barriers and emphasized the use of federal court orders called injunctions. An injunction is a court order that either
compels (forces) or restrains (limits) the performance of some act by a private individual or by a
public official. The violation of an injunction
amounts to contempt of court, a crime punishable
by fine and/or imprisonment.
1924
Indian Citizenship Act grants all
Native Americans the rights of
citizenship, including the right to
vote in federal elections.
1925
1920
19th Amendment
guarantees American
women the right to vote
in all elections.
6 • Section 3
Background Note
Common Misconceptions
Contrary to popular belief, the United
States was hardly a world leader in
granting women suffrage. By the time
the 19th Amendment was ratified in
1920, fully 15 other countries had
already extended voting rights to
women. The first of these countries,
New Zealand, beat the United States by
almost four decades.
L1
The Voting Rights Act of 1965
Have students review the section and
write ten true-or-false questions about
section content. Students should
then exchange their questions with a
partner and answer them.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made the 15th
Amendment, at long last, a truly effective part of
the Constitution. Unlike its predecessors, this act
applied to all elections held anywhere in this
country—State and local, as well as federal.
Originally, the Voting Rights Act was to be
in effect for a period of five years. Congress has
1964
1995
24th Amendment bans
poll tax as requirement
for voting in federal
elections.
Federal “Motor Voter Law”
takes effect, making
it easier to register to
vote.
1950
1975
1965
Voting Rights Act protects the
rights of minority voters and eliminates
voting barriers such as the literacy test.
Expanded and renewed in 1970,
1975, and 1982.
1971
26th Amendment
sets the minimum
voting age at 18.
SN
Point-of-Use Resources
Guided Reading and Review Unit 2
booklet, p. 16 provides students with
practice identifying the main ideas
and key terms of this section.
2000
2003
Federal Voting Standards
and Procedures Act
requires States to streamline registration, voting, and
other election procedures.
Lesson Planner For complete
lesson planning suggestions, see the
Lesson Planner booklet, section 3.
Political Cartoons See p. 25 of
the Political Cartoons booklet for a
cartoon relevant to this section.
Section Support Transparencies
Transparency 28, Visual Learning;
Transparency 127, Political Cartoon
Analyzing Time Lines
1. Which amendments have granted voting rights to specific groups of people?
2. What has been the general trend of constitutional changes related to voting?
Answers to . . .
Analyzing Time Lines 1. The 15th,
19th, and 26th Amendments
2. The general trend has been
toward a more democratic political system, or government by the
people.
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6 • Section 3
Southern Black Voters, 1960–1970
4
Number registered
(in millions)
Background Note
Recent Scholarship
How did international affairs influence
the civil rights movement? This
provocative question is examined and
answered in University of Southern
California law professor Mary
Dudziak’s book Cold War Civil Rights:
Race and the Image of American
Democracy. Dudziak maintains that
the civil rights movement was intricately bound up with the Cold War,
and that the relationship between the
two was not always forthright. The
author argues that while the United
States was presenting itself to the
world as the model of human rights
and democracy, it was simultaneously
denying civil rights to a large portion
of its population. This hypocritical
stance caused a strain in foreign relations, which led politicians to press for
some civil rights reforms. The emphasis was on appearance rather than
actual change, however, so the pace
of reform was slow and uneven.
Dudziak’s premise is an interesting
one, and sheds new light on both the
Cold War and civil rights.
Close Up on Primary Sources
Seneca Falls Declaration (1848), p. 37;
Lucy Stone’s Letter to the New Jersey
Tax Collector (1858), p. 38; Civil
Rights Act (1964), p. 46; Voting
Rights Act (1965), p. 47
Answer to . . .
Interpreting Graphs About 1.7 million new African American voters
registered.
162
2
1
0
1960
1964
1966
Year
1968
1970
SOURCE: Historical Statistics of Black America
Interpreting Graphs In the photo at left, civil rights demonstrators
risk injury and even death in the 1965 Selma march for voting
rights. How many new African American voters registered in
the South between 1960 and 1970?
extended its life three times, in the Voting
Rights Act Amendments of 1970, 1975, and
most recently 1982. The present version of
the law was made effective for 25 years; its
provisions are scheduled to expire in 2007.
The 1965 law directed the attorney general to
challenge the constitutionality of the remaining
State poll-tax laws in the federal courts. That
provision led directly to Harper v. Virginia Board
of Elections, in 1966 (see page 157).
The law also suspended the use of any literacy
test or similar device in any State or county
where less than half of the electorate had been
registered or had voted in the 1964 presidential
election. The law authorized the attorney general
to appoint voting examiners to serve in any of
those States or counties. It also gave these federal
officers the power to register voters and otherwise
oversee the conduct of elections in those areas.
Preclearance
Point-of-Use Resources
3
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 created a further
restriction on those States where a majority of
the electorate had not voted in 1964. The act
declared that no new election laws, and no
changes in existing election laws, could go into
effect in any of those States unless first approved
—given preclearance—by the Department of
Justice. Only those new or revised laws that do
not “dilute” (weaken) the voting rights of minority groups can survive the preclearance process.
The preclearance hurdle has produced a large
number of court cases since the passage of the
law. Those cases show that the laws most likely
to run afoul of the preclearance requirement are
those that make these kinds of changes:
(1) the location of polling places;
(2) the boundaries of election districts;
(3) deadlines in the election process;
(4) from ward or district election to at-large
elections;
(5) the qualifications candidates must meet in
order to run for office.
Any State or county subject to the voterexaminer and preclearance provisions can be
removed from the law’s coverage through a
“bail-out” process. That relief can come if the
State can show the United States District Court
in the District of Columbia that it has not
applied any voting procedures in a discriminatory way for at least 10 years.
The voter-examiner and preclearance provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act originally
applied to six entire States: Alabama, Georgia,
Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and
Virginia. The act also applied to 40 North
Carolina counties.
The Supreme Court upheld the Voting Rights
Act in 1966. In the case of South Carolina v.
Katzenbach, a unanimous Court found the law
to be a proper exercise of the power granted to
Congress in Section 2 of the 15th Amendment.
That provision authorizes Congress to use
‘appropriate’ measures to enforce the constitutional prohibition against racial discrimination
in voting.
Amendments to the Act
The 1970 amendments extended the law for
another five years. The 1968 elections were added
to the law’s triggering formula; the result was that
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a number of counties in six more States (Alaska,
Arizona, California, Idaho, New Mexico, and
Oregon) were added to the law’s coverage.
The 1970 law also provided that, for five
years, no State could use literacy as the basis
for any voting requirement. That temporary
ban as well as residence provisions outlined in
the law were upheld by the Supreme Court in
Oregon v. Mitchell in 1970.
In 1975, the law was extended again, this time
for seven years, and the five-year ban on literacy
tests was made permanent. Since 1975, no State
has been able to apply any sort of literacy qualification to any aspect of the election process.
The law’s voter-examiner and preclearance
provisions were also broadened in 1975. Since
then they have also covered any State or county
where more than 5 percent of the voting-age
population belongs to certain “language minorities.” These groups are defined to include all
persons of Spanish heritage, Native Americans,
Asian Americans, and Alaskan Natives.
This addition expanded the law’s coverage
to all of Alaska and Texas and to several
counties in 24 other States, as well. In these
areas, all ballots and other official election
materials must be printed both in English and
in the language of the minority, or minorities,
involved.
The 1982 amendments extended the basic
features of the act for another 25 years. In
1992 the law’s language-minority provisions
Point-of-Use Resources
Guide to the Essentials Chapter 6,
Section 3, p. 40 provides support for students who need additional
review of section content. Spanish
support is available in the Spanish
edition of the Guide on p. 33.
䉱 I Have a Dream This famous speech, delivered by civil rights leader
Martin Luther King, Jr., was a highlight of the 1963 March on Washington,
which drew more than 200,000 people.
were revised: they now apply to any community
that has a minority-language population of
10,000 or more persons.
Over the years, several States and a handful
of counties in a few other States have been
removed from the law’s coverage, through the
“bail-out” process. Today, eight entire States
remain subject to the Voting Rights Act:
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas. At least
some counties in eight other States are also covered by the statute: California, Florida,
Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, North
Carolina, South Dakota, and Virginia.
Progress Monitoring Online
Key Terms and Main Ideas
1. What is gerrymandering? What other devices were used to
disenfranchise African Americans?
2. What part do injunctions play in the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
3. What is preclearance? How can a State “bail out” of the
preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965?
4. (a) Identify the major civil rights laws enacted since 1950.
(b) Describe voting rights provisions in these laws.
Critical Thinking
5. Drawing Conclusions Even after the ratification of the 15th
Amendment, African Americans in the South were denied the
right to vote because the amendment was not implemented.
(a) What does that tell you about American attitudes from
1870 until the 1950s? (b) Why did those attitudes change?
Progress Monitoring Online
For: Self-quiz with vocabulary practice
Web Code: mqa-2063
PHSchool.com
Typing in the Web Code when
prompted will bring students directly to detailed
instructions for this activity.
6 • Section 3
For: Self-quiz with vocabulary practice
Web Code: mqa-2063
6. Recognizing Cause and Effect (a) How do you think the
historical denial of voting rights to African Americans affected
the makeup of Congress and many State legislatures?
(b) How did that result, in turn, affect the likelihood that
these legislatures would pass civil rights laws?
PHSchool.com
PHSchool.com
For: An activity on voting
rights
Web Code: mqd-2063
6. Possible answers: (a) It meant that
Congress was made up of people who
did not represent all Americans and
in many cases were not sympathetic
to the plight of African Americans.
(b) It reduced the likelihood of getting
civil rights legislation passed.
Close Up on Primary Sources
Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have a
Dream” Speech (1963), p. 45
Quiz Unit 2 booklet, p. 17
includes matching and multiplechoice questions to check students’
understanding of Section 3 content.
Presentation Pro CD-ROM Quizzes
and multiple-choice questions
check students’ understanding of
Section 3 content.
Answers to . . .
Section 3 Assessment
1. Gerrymandering is the practice of
drawing electoral district lines to
favor a particular party; other devices
included violence, social pressures,
literacy tests, and poll taxes.
2. The 1964 law encouraged injunctions, court orders that force or
restrain a particular action.
3. Preclearance is prior approval
by the Department of Justice for a
change to a law; States can bail out
by showing that they have not applied
discriminatory voting practices for at
least 10 years.
4. (a) The Civil Rights Act of 1957;
the Civil Rights Act of 1960; and
the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (b)
1957: Set up the U.S. Civil Rights
Commission; 1960: Provided for the
appointment of federal voting referees; 1964: Outlawed discrimination
in several areas and encouraged use
of injunctions.
5. (a) That despite the 15th
Amendment, most Americans still did
not believe that African Americans
deserved equality when it came to
voting rights. (b) The civil rights
movement as well as a growing public
awareness of violence against African
Americans brought about change.
163