Voting Rights Organizations

The passage of the 14th, 15th, and 19th Amendments constitutionally guaranteed the right to vote to Black Americans. However, from the late-19th to mid-20th centuries, Jim Crow and other systems of oppression saw the widespread disenfranchisement of Black Americans. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses (often sanctioned by the Supreme Court), were used to deny the vote to African Americans and the poor without running afoul of the Constitution. In response, Americans formed various activist groups to challenge all parts of the Jim Crow system, but voting in particular. Groups formed in the early 20th Century, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), focused on incremental change and backed many of the lawsuits that convinced the Supreme Court to declare many voting restrictions unconstitutional.

Look Southward Angel! Pamphlet (NAID 119652186)

Jimmy Carter meets with the Congressional Black Caucus (NAID 181563)

By the 1950s and 1960s, a number of other activist groups arose that took more confrontational approaches. The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party often conducted marches, sit-ins, and other protests to directly challenge authorities who worked to disenfranchise voters. The Freedom Summers and the 1965 Selma Marches were perhaps the most famous of these instances of direct action that helped push for the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. After the Voting Rights Act and Twenty-fourth Amendment outlawed most of the discriminatory voting practices, the United States witnessed a surge in the African American vote and more Black people were elected to public office. Formed to represent the interests of Black Americans, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) represented this newfound political power. Prominent politicians such as Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm and President Barack Obama have been past members.