Constitution Day and Voter Registration: Universal Suffrage

This website, published by HarpWeek, includes primary source material from Harper's Weekly (such as editorials, cartoons, and feature stories), an annotated timeline, biographical sketches, and commentary by modern historians.

This image from the National Archives shows the House joint resolution proposing the 15th amendment to the Constitution of the United States extending the right to vote to all male citizens regardless of race.

This guide from the Library of Congress includes items from their own collections, newspaper articles, online exhibitions, links to other websites, and a selected bibliography, all on the topic of the 15th Amendment.

When Senator Hiram Revels of Mississippi - the first African American to serve in Congress - toured the United States in 1871, he was introduced as the “Fifteenth Amendment in flesh and blood.” This website from the House of Representatives gives the history of Black Americans in Congress.

This lecture by Columbia University historian Eric Foner explains how the incorporation of former slaves into American citizens helped define citizenship in the United States.

This website from the Library of Congress has portraits, photographs, cartoons, and engravings from the Women's Suffrage Movement.

This collection from the Library of Congress consists of 167 books, pamphlets and other artifacts documenting the suffrage campaign.

First published in 1920, this book available full-text online through Project Gutenberg, offers Stevens's firsthand account of the women who endured the indifference of Congress and President Woodrow Wilson, the abuse by the press and the police, beatings at the hands of mobs and forced feedings in foul workhouses to force passage of the 19th Amendment.

This website from the Library of Congress tells the story of the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913 in Washington, DC.

This document from the Library of Congress lists many of the women who were arrested and imprisoned during their protests for women's suffrage.

This website has selected images from the collections of the Library of Congress of the struggle for Women's Suffrage.

This image from the National Archives shows the joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States extending the right to vote to citizens eighteen years of age or older.

This website has Richard Nixon's statement about the ratification of the 26th Amendment to the Constitution on June 30, 1971.

This video from Richard Nixon's Presidential Library shows the 26th Amendment Certification Ceremony.

This song was one of the ones that protested the fact that 18-year old could get sent to Vietnam, but couldn't vote for the leaders who sent them there, with the lyrics "You're old enough to kill, but not for votin'." This recording was from 1965.

This song by The Who is another example of a song lamenting the fact that young people couldn't vote, with the lyrics, "I went to my congressman and he said Quote: 'I'd like to help you son, but you're too young to vote.'"

This CNN article, published in 1996, looks back 25 years after the passage of the 26th Amendment.

Here is the full-text of President Obama's 2011 proclamation celebrating the 40th anniversary of the 26th Amendment.