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SCLC leader Wyatt T. Walker and Jackie Robinson tour the ruins of Mount Olive Baptist Church, Sasser, Georgia, September 9th, 1962.

‘A Model Southern Sheriff’: Z.T. Mathews and the 1962 Fight for Voting Rights in Terrell County

A glaring portrait of the human cost of law enforcement officers who claim to be above the law.
Women around a table of papers and forms, with a League of Women Voters banner on the wall.

What the First Women Voters Experienced When Registering for the 1920 Election

The process varied by state, with some making accommodations for the new voting bloc and others creating additional obstacles.
Drawing of Stella Stimson at a polling place with a notebook.

When a Trailblazing Suffragist and a Crusading Prosecutor Teamed Up to Expose an Election Conspiracy

In 1916, an unlikely duo exposed political corruption in Indiana, setting a new precedent for fair voting across the country.
Fannie Lou Hamer speaks at the Democratic National Convention in 1964.

The Civil-Rights Era’s Great Unanswered Question

Is this America?
FBI agents and local police examine a bombed out pickup truck in Natchez, Mississippi.

The History of Violent Opposition to Black Political Participation

Leaders in the 20th-century South faced violence and death for promoting voting rights; systemic failure enabled their killers to go unpunished.
Freedom School students sitting in a circle on the ground.
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60 Years Later, Freedom Schools Are Still Radical—and Necessary

The Freedom Schools curriculums developed in 1964 remain urgently needed, especially in our era of book bans and backlash.
After his shooting, a hospitalized Wallace holds up a newspaper touting his victories in the Maryland and Michigan Democratic presidential primaries.

How a Failed Assassination Attempt Pushed George Wallace to Reconsider His Segregationist Views

Fifty years ago, a fame-seeker shot the polarizing politician five times, paralyzing him from the waist down.
Portrait of Medgar Evers.

The Day The Civil-Rights Movement Changed

What my father saw in Mississippi.
Civil Rights March on Washington, people holding signs calling for integration

How White Violence Turned a Peaceful Civil Rights Demonstration Into Mayhem

Winfred Rembert on protesting in the Jim Crow South and getting arrested.
Civil rights era photo of young people protesting for voting rights in between black and white photos of black people lined up to vote

American Democracy Is Only 55 Years Old—And Hanging by a Thread

Black civil-rights activists—and especially Black women—delivered on the promise of the Founding. Their victories are in peril.
African American women with signs promoting voter registration, 1956

Things Ain’t Always Gone Be This Way

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers on how her mother overcame voter suppression and became an activist in her community.

What Jaime Harrison's Race Meant for the South

Jaime Harrison lost to Lindsey Graham but expanded Democrats’ vision of what’s possible in the Deep South.
James Baldwin

Freedom Day, 1963: A Lost Interview with James Baldwin

After Baldwin’s biographer died, her niece opened an old desk drawer and discovered a trove of interview material, some of it unpublished.

What the 19th Amendment Meant for Black Women

It wasn’t a culminating moment, but the start of a new fight to secure voting rights for all Americans.

Fannie Lou Hamer's Dauntless Fight for Black Americans' Right to Vote

The activist did not learn about her right to vote until she was 44, but once she did, she vigorously fought for black voting rights
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How Black Women Fought Racism and Sexism for the Right to Vote

African American women played a significant and sometimes overlooked role in the struggle to gain the vote.
A statue of a woman and two children, with the photo taken at twilight with the moon in the background.

Mary McLeod Bethune Was at the Vanguard of More Than 50 Years of Black Progress

Winning the vote for women was a mighty struggle. Securing full liberation for women of color was no less daunting
NOLA Resistance Oral History Project title card featuring images of the civil rights movement.

NOLA Resistance Oral History Project

This oral history project records testimony from individuals who were active in the fight for racial equality in New Orleans between 1954 and 1976.

What Does Tax Policy Have to Do with the Civil Rights Movement?

How congressional conservatives undermined the civil rights movement through the Tax Reform Act of 1969.

You Probably Don't Know This About U.S. Elections

From voting rights to the electoral college, a brief explainer on three widespread misconceptions about voting.
Woman gets help filling out voter registration form.
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Voter Fraud Isn’t a Problem in America. Low Turnout Is.

For centuries, voter fraud has been used as an excuse to restrict the vote.

Welcome To Jim Crow 2.0

Georgia GOP candidate Brian Kemp is using a tried-and-tested formula designed to erode and corrode American democracy.

Today’s Voter Suppression Tactics Have A 150 Year History

Rebels in the post-Civil War South perfected the art of excluding voters, but it was yankees in the North who developed the script.

I Tried to Help Black People Vote. Jeff Sessions Tried to Put Me in Jail

Jeff Sessions tried to jail an activist couple trying to ensure the black residents of Alabama the right to vote.

The Missing Right: A Constitutional Right to Vote

In the era of the voting wars, the right to vote is itself a subject of continued partisan, regional, and racial conflict.
Taylor Swift's Instagram post endorsing Kamala Harris. Swift is holding a cat and facing the camera, dressed in black.

Taylor Swift and the History of the Celebrity Endorsement

Do pop culture interventions in presidential elections make a difference?
A newly registered voter fills out a sample ballot for sheriff in Lowndes County. The ballot has the logo of the Black Panther Party formed by Stokely Carmichael of SNCC.

How Stokely Carmichael and the Black Panthers Changed the Civil Rights Movement

Much of what's happening in American race relations traces back to 1966, the year the Black Panthers were formed.
African Americans campaigning for Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker, and Confederate symbols in Georgia.

Minority Rule(s)

Georgia’s competitive runoff election is the result of centuries of white supremacist efforts.
Side-by-side of Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock
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The Racist Origins of Georgia’s Runoff Elections

Sen. Raphael Warnock and challenger Herschel Walker, both Black, square off in a contest designed to empower White voters.
Protesters holding flags of the US and Mexico.
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How Prop. 187 Transformed the Immigration Debate and California Politics

Much of the anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy in the news today is similar to a movement that swept the country 20 years ago.

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