This is a webpage written by high school teachers for those who teach US history who want to find online content as well as technology that you can use in the classroom.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
A History of Voting Rights
The Supreme Court invalidated a part of the Voting Rights Act today. This New York Times article and the video clip above reviews the history of voting rights. The video clip is terrific and provides a great review.
I love your blog but I have to disagree with your evaluation of this video. I find it slap-dash and disingenuous. First of all, the Fourteenth Amendment, which it says gave the vote to African American men, explicitly allows their disfranchisement. Go read Section 2 and you'll see it reduces representation for districts that do so. The Fifteenth Amendment is a better candidate. Second, it buys into Chief Justice Roberts' deceitful argument that times have changed since 1965 and Congress needs to reexamine conditions. Congress did so in 2006 at great length. The video is good on some topics, but it's a better point of entree into a discussion of how US democracy in general and the Republican Party in particular have and have not changed.
I love your blog but I have to disagree with your evaluation of this video. I find it slap-dash and disingenuous. First of all, the Fourteenth Amendment, which it says gave the vote to African American men, explicitly allows their disfranchisement. Go read Section 2 and you'll see it reduces representation for districts that do so. The Fifteenth Amendment is a better candidate. Second, it buys into Chief Justice Roberts' deceitful argument that times have changed since 1965 and Congress needs to reexamine conditions. Congress did so in 2006 at great length. The video is good on some topics, but it's a better point of entree into a discussion of how US democracy in general and the Republican Party in particular have and have not changed.
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