Congress passed the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in 1965 following years of civil rights activism and widely publicized violence against Black southerners who organized to demand the right to vote. This law provided new protections for Black voters whose unprecedented political power changed the fabric of the United States. Despite this major victory, the fight for minoritized communities to gain access to the ballot still continues in new forms today.

This collection demonstrates the ways that conservative groups have consistently organized to make voting difficult for minoritized communities and how voting rights activists have both countered these efforts and won new gains in voting access. Connecting the civil rights movement to the present day, items in this collection detail historical and modern examples of voter suppression including poll taxes, gerrymandering, literacy tests, and voter ID laws. This archive also highlights the ways that activists and ordinary Americans have organized to gain and preserve their ability to vote through letters to elected officials, community education, petitions, voter registration efforts, running for office, and political demonstrations.

These items make it clear that the right to vote is both powerful and fragile, and above all, worth fighting for. In order to understand more subtle modern methods of voter suppression, young Americans can benefit from learning in more detail how, for certain groups, the right to vote has continually been under attack. With the Supreme Court’s decision to weaken the VRA in 2013, and with the potential for the Court to limit its protections further, it is important to understand what voter suppression looks like or it will be impossible to fight against it. We must also learn from the tactics that previous generations of voting rights activists and ordinary citizens employed to protect their rights. With this knowledge, Americans can work together to create a more equitable future.

Learn more on our website, Brass Tactics: Take Control of Your Right to Vote

Which also features Know Your Rights, a StoryMap experience

Learn from past attempts to suppress the right to vote and how ordinary Americans came together to protect it

Throughout this collection you will find artifacts from around the United States, both from the 1960s when the VRA was ratified, and more recently, as the struggle for voting rights continues. As you browse through the collection, click on the yellow button "See all items with this value" to learn how tactics from the past connect with tactics used today by politicians, activists, and ordinary citizens.

The Long Legacy of American Voter Suppression and Activism