US National Archives
Docsteach: Extending Suffrage to Women
In this activity, students will analyze documents pertaining to the women's suffrage movement as it intensified following passage of the 15th Amendment that guaranteed the right to vote for African American males. Documents were chosen...
OpenStax
Open Stax: Americans and the Great War 1914 1919: A New Home Front
World War I changed the configuration of the workforce and organized labor took the opportunity to strengthen its power base. This section looks at the impact of these changes on women and African Americans, as well as how the women's...
US National Archives
Docsteach: From Dred Scott to Civil Rights Act of 1875: Eighteen Years of Change
In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott decision that African-Americans were not citizens of the United States. Yet within 18 years, Black Americans would not only have citizenship, but would be guaranteed the right to...
Other
Fair Vote: X's and O's: A History of the Voting Rights Act and African Americans
Documented essay on the history of black suffrage in American and the significance of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The Vote, Making of African American Identity: V. 2
An appeal for black voting rights and an editorial cartoon opposing them. This resource explains that while the 15th Amendment granted black men the right to vote, southern states fought to block its implementation.
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Aftermath: Postcards, African Americans Picking Cotton
Though given the right to vote, African-American men and women faced discrimination and racist practices that often prevented them from voting in the early 20th century. Read about some of these practices, and how, for example, the Texas...
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Aftermath: African American Women and the Vote
Though the suffrage movement failed to exclude African-American women, and many obstacles came in the way of their voting (e.g., poll taxes, literacy tests, etc.), "African-American women were not strangers to community activism." Learn...
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Gilder Lehrman Institute: History Now: Historian's Perspective: Winning the Vote: History of Voting Rights
[Free Registration/Login Required] Historian-authored three-part overview looks at the history of voting rights in America, touching on all the critical moments in American history when voting rights were first denied then granted to...
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Texas State Library and Archives Commission: The Movement Comes of Age: Suffrage Map, Austin Woman Suffrage Association
Here is an interesting "Suffrage Map," showing which states had granted women the right to vote by 1913. Read how the women's voting movement was, unfortunately, soiled by racism, as shown through the map's text, "Won't You Help Us Make...
Black Past
Black Past: Barnett, Ida Wells
This biography details the life and journalistic career of African American women's rights activist Ida B. Wells Barnett.
PBS
Pbs: The American Experience in the 1900s
This site presents a general picture of what life was like in the United States at the turn of the century. Content includes compelling images, information, and documents about American life.
US National Archives
Nara: Teaching With Documents: Petition Signed by Thomas A. Edison
What a surprise to read about the several controversies engendered by the request that the Columbian Exposition be open on Sundays. This lesson plan examines the background of the main controversy and its relation to the First Amendment....
Virginia History Series
Virginia History Series: Virginia State History Reconstruction to 1900 [Pdf]
Much of Virginia was devastated after the Civil War so a period of rebuilding commenced. Follow Reconstruction through the different plans, the effects on African-Americans and the South. This slideshow has pictures,charts, and maps to...
Smithsonian Institution
National Postal Museum: 1990 Black Heritage Series: Ida B. Wells Issue
View the artwork for a U.S. postage stamp issued in 1990 to commemorate Ida B. Wells, one of the founders of the NAACP. With a short passage on her life and contributions to ending discrimination against women and African-Americans.
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Texas Joins the Battle: African American Women, 1890s
See photos that are representative of the lives of African-American women at the turn of the century and read about the discrimination black women and men faced: Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, and the "white primary" rule. A brief...
PBS
Pbs: Cet: Africans in America: William Lloyd Garrison
Photo and biographical text included in this PBS site on William Lloyd Garrison. Part of a larger site linked to the series "Africans in America". Click on Teacher's Guide for teacher resources.
Georgia Humanities Council and the University of Georgia Press.
New Georgia Encyclopedia: Atlanta Race Riot of 1906
Article that retells the story behind the Atlanta race riots of 1906 where white mobs killed and wounded dozens of blacks in reaction to newspaper headlines of alleged assaults of white females by blacks, general racial tensions, the...
PBS
Wnet: Thirteen: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow: Voting Then, Voting Now
This site explores the voting experiences for African Americans beginning in the Jim Crow era. It shares literacy tests African Americans had to take and other challenges they were given for the right to vote. This denial of the right to...
Digital History
Digital History: Voting Rights
In 1964 African Americans won the right to vote, but still had to jump through several hoops in some states before actually casting a ballot. Find out how voiting evolved into 1965.
Other
Amistad Digital Resource: Voting Rights
Article discusses African Americans and their push for the right to vote which eventually resulted in blacks being elected as officials in the 1940s.
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: Rebuilding the Old Order
Reconstruction in the South engendered corruption, greed, a poor economy, and a backlash against the idea of allowing freed slaves to take part in political and civic life. Read about the formation of paramilitary groups who attempted to...
Library of Congress
Loc: America's Story: Great War & Jazz Age (1914 1928)
This Library of Congress time-line series surveys World War I and the Jazz Age. When World War I broke out in Europe, many changes were going on in the United States. Women were voting for the first time and African-American culture was...
Black Past
Black Past: Forten, James (1766 1842)
An encyclopedia article about James Forten, a free black man, who fought in the Revolutionary War, and later became a supporter of abolition and suffrage.
Other
Mississippi Writers' Page: Ida B. Wells Barnett
The University of Mississippi offers a detailed biography of Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) the famous freedom fighter is offered at this site. It includes an extensive bibliography of her works, and works about her, as well as some...