From KQED News comes this extensive interactive timeline, spanning 1787 to 2016, that highlights major events and laws impacting suffrage. For instance, in the first presidential election of 1789, as this timeline highlights, only 6% of the U.S. population was able to vote. Most events on the suffrage timeline highlight the passage of the 15th and 19th Amendments along with the Voting Rights Act, emphasizing woman's suffrage and the long movement for African-American voting rights. In contrast, this timeline includes important details about suffrages rights for other groups, providing a more thorough overview of U.S. Voting Rights. For example, included here is the legal exclusion of voting rights to Native Americans and Chinese Americans in 1876 and 1882, respectively. The timeline also highlights the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act, which provided citizenship and voting rights to first-generation Japanese- Americans. The comprehensive nature of this timeline makes it a useful K-12 classroom tool to start discussion or inspire individual research projects. The timeline is also accompanied by a lesson plan.
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