Interactive African American Voting Rights Government and Civics African American Voting Rights from The Gilder Lehrman Institute on Vimeo .
Spotlight on: Primary Source Birth of a Nation, 1915 Government and Civics This "Advice Sheet" flyer was distributed with D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation to theaters when the film was released in 1915. Significantly, the distributors are adamant that "NEGROES MUST NOT BE ADMITTED . . . under any...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Campaigning for the African American vote in Georgia, 1894 Economics, Government and Civics In the gubernatorial and local elections of 1894, the Democrats and the newly formed People’s Party or Populist Party vied for black votes in Georgia. Neither the Democrats nor the Populists called for racial equality in their...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Disfranchisement of African American voters in Virginia, 1901 Government and Civics In February 1901, the Virginia General Assembly authorized a constitutional convention to draft election reforms. The convention, supported vehemently by Democrats, aimed to disfranchise African Americans without violating the...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Frederick Douglass on Jim Crow, 1887 Government and Civics 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Frederick Douglass tirelessly labored to end slavery but true equality remained out of reach. Despite the successful passage of several Constitutional amendments and federal laws after the Civil War, unwritten rules and Jim Crow laws...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Frederick Douglass on the disfranchisement of Black voters, 1888 Government and Civics Frederick Douglass, a former enslaved man and premier champion of civil rights for African Americans and women, was the nineteenth century’s most famous Black leader. In this letter, written in December 1888, he protests the...
Interactive James Reese Europe James Reese Europe World War I James Reese Europe, a bandleader in New York City, was an advocate for uniquely Black music. Europe enlisted during World War I and became a lieutenant in the 369th Regiment, known as the Harlem Hellfighters. Image...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Lynching in America, ca. 1926 Government and Civics The number of violent acts against African Americans accelerated during the first quarter of the twentieth century. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) began compiling lynching statistics in 1912,...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Nominating an African American for vice president, 1880 Government and Civics Born a slave in 1841, Blanche Kelso Bruce was the first African American to be elected to a full term in the US Senate. During his term as a senator from Mississippi (1875–1881), he advocated the rights of African Americans and other...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Racism in the North: Frederick Douglass on "a vulgar and senseless prejudice," 1870 In 1870 Thomas Burnett Pugh, an ardent abolitionist prior to the Civil War, invited Frederick Douglass to participate in the "Star Course" lecture series he had organized at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. However, Douglass ...