Voting Rights
kennyne washington jr. p.6
voting rights
- general Robert Kennedy urged them to focus on voter registration rather than on protests - In 1962 SNCC, CORE, and other groups created the Voter Education Project to register southern African Americans to vote
-the 24th amendment banned states from taxing citizens to vote
Freedom Summer
-offered African American students much-needed help in reading and math as well as instruction in black history and the civil rights movement
-Besides educating children and registering voters, project workers hoped to start a freedom movement in Mississippi that would continue after the volunteers left
-They were arrested for speeding in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and held in jail until evening. After paying a fine, the three men drove off into the night. They were never heard from again
-The Freedom Schools taught 3,000 students, and more than 17,000 African Americans in Mississippi applied to vote
Political Organizing
-a political party created in 1964 with the purpose of winning seats at the 1964 Democratic National ConventionThe MFDP elected sixtyeight delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August 1964
-an MFDP leader, presented her group’s case Her testimony was carried live on national television
-seat two members of the MFDP delegation and classify the rest as nonvoting “guests” of the convention
Voting Rights Act
-After firing tear gas at the marchers, police attacked with clubs, chains, and electric cattle prods
-civil rights law that banned literacy tests and other practices that discouraged blacks from voting Within three weeks more than 27,000 African Americans in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana registered to vote. African American candidates were soon elected to state and local offices, helping to break the long-held political power of those who supported segregation.