The Voting Rights Act of 1965--called "the most successful civil rights law in the nation's history" by Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights--was enacted in order to force Southern states and localities to allow all citizens of voting age to vote in public elections. Although the 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, guaranteed citizens the right to vote regardless of race, discriminatory requirements, such as literacy tests, disenfranchised many African Americans in the South. In 1965, following the murder of a voting rights activist by an Alabama sheriff's deputy and the subsequent attack by state troopers on a massive protest march in Selma, President Lyndon B. Johnson pressed Congress to pass a voting rights bill with "teeth". The Act, signed into law on August 6, applied to states or counties where fewer than half of the citizens of voting age were registered in 1964--Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia, and numerous counties in North Carolina. For these areas, the law banned literacy tests, appointed Federal examiners to oversee election procedures, and, according to the Act's controversial Section 5, required approval by the U.S. Attorney General of future changes to election laws. In the following letter to a 1969 Senate subcommittee hearing on extending the Act, New Jersey Senator Harrison A. Williams, Jr., provided statistics to show the law's effect. The position described in the letter was Attorney General John Mitchell's proposal to replace Section 5 with an oversight mechanism more amenable to the white South. Ultimately, on June 22, 1970, President Richard M. Nixon signed into law a bill that extended the Act's provisions--including Section 5--for five additional years, and in addition, lowered the voting age throughout the country to 18.

In this lesson, students watch a clip from the episode Woolworth Sign in which they learn about the use of sit-ins and nonviolence in the Civil Rights Movement. They then examine period images and news footage in order to analyze the strategies of the Civil Rights Movement and their effectiveness, and create a newspaper article about the events of the time period.

This assessment from the Stanford History Education Group gauges whether students can source and contextualize a document. Students must first examine an interview excerpt on a race riot in Nashville during the Civil Rights Movement, then determine which facts can help them evaluate the interview's reliability. Strong students will be able to explain how the the gap in time between the riot and the interview (Fact 2) and that Cleaver was not present for the riot (Fact 3) make the account less reliable.

This transcript of an interview for Eyes on the Prize documents the leadership strategies of March on Washington organizer Bayard Rustin.

This inquiry leads students through an investigation of the Civil Rights movement and the methods used to challenge social injustices in the United States. Students will analyze the disagreements between Civil Rights leaders on how best to accomplish shared goals. Students will work with primary sources and secondary sources to evaluate the methods by which leaders have attempted to support the movement.

Diane Nash was a college student when she started leading sit-in demonstrations to protest discrimination. In this interview, recorded for Eyes on the Prize, Nash describes her role in the Civil Rights movement.

This collection of excerpts from legislation and court decisions documents key phases of the legal struggle to gain and implement equal education.

This collection uses primary sources to explore Fannie Lou Hamer and the civil rights movement in rural Mississippi. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This collection uses primary sources to explore The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

The National Humanities center presents this collection of essays by leading scholars on the topic ŇFreedomŐs Story: Teaching African American Literature and HistoryÓ. Topics include the affect of slavery on families, slave resistance, how to read slave narratives, Frederick Douglass, reconstruction, segregation, pigmentocracy, protest poetry, jazz, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, and more.

This lesson is designed for middle school students to get an understanding of how things have
changed (or not) over time as it pertains to strengths, perseverance and oppression related to
African Americans over time. The time period is from then (whenever then is depicted in the
films) and present day African American culture.

Use the following NewsHour Classroom resources to examine King’s impact on civil rights and his ongoing legacy. Lessons include a deep dive anayisis of the “I have a dream” speech and the impact of Dr, King’s work on current evens

A letter about the importance of voter registation of African American voters in the upcoming election from 1957. 

In this interview, recorded for Eyes on the Prize, legendary civil rights activist Rosa Parks recalls her role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Sheyann Webb was eight years old in 1965 when she marched for voting rights. In this interview, recorded for Eyes on the Prize, she recalls the events of the Selma march.

This segment from American Experience: Simple Justice profiles Charles Houston's strategy for attacking segregation and how he trained the legal team that eventually argued the Brown case.

This segment from American Experience: Simple Justice documents Dr. Kenneth Clark's doll test, which became important social science evidence in the Brown case.

This segment from American Experience: Simple Justice captures the legal issues and opening arguments in Brown v. Board of Education.

This segment from American Experience: Simple Justice explores the issue at the heart of Brown v. Board of Education: whether the Fourteenth Amendment applied to segregated schools.

This segment from American Experience: Simple Justice reenacts Thurgood Marshall's closing statement in Brown v. Board of Education.