1900'S VOTING RIGHTS

1900’s Voting rights came with blood, sweat, tears and ultimately triumph.  African American received protection under the law and the abolishment or at least the acknowledgment of the ill practices of voter repression in the South and many other states throughout the country.  All women received the right to vote and a general sense of shared power and true democracy was established, but, this did not come about without hard work, dedication and love for country and the belief in freedom.    

1915: The US Supreme Court ruled that the grandfather clause was unconstitutional.

1920: Native Americans in North Dakota who had abandoned their tribal ties secure the right to vote.

1920: The 19^th Amendment, adopted by Congress on June 4, 1919, is finally ratified by the states and becomes national law, giving women the right to vote.

1924: The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 declares all non-citizen Indian Born within the US to the be citizens, giving them the right to vote.

1940: Only 3% of eligible African Americans in the South are registered to vote.

1943: In a major civil rights victory, the Chinese Exclusion Act is repealed, giving Chinese immigrants the right to citizenship and the right to vote.

1946: Filipinos are granted the right to become US Citizens. 

1947: Only 125,000 African Americans in Georgia, or 18.8 of the population, are registered to vote.

1952: The McCarra-Walter Act gives first generation Japanese Americans the right to become citizens.

1957: Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1957 giving the US Attorney General the authority to bring lawsuits on behalf of African Americans denied the right to vote.

1964: Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, religion, and gender in voting, public places, the workplace and schools.

1965: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act into law, permanently barring direct barriers to political participation by racial and ethnic minorities, prohibiting any election practice that denies the right to vote on account of race, and requiring jurisdictions with a history of discrimination in voting to get federal approval of changes in their election laws before they can take effect.

1967: African American voter registration jumps from 6.7% in Mississippi before passage of the voting rights act, to 59.8% in 1967.

1971: The 26th Amendment gives 18 year olds the right to vote.

1972: Barbara Jordan of Houston and Andrew Young of Atlanta become the first African Americans elected to Congress from the South since The Reconstruction.