WE SHALL NOT BE DENIED

A timeline of high spots and low in the continuing struggle to expand voting rights in the United States.

Designed more to give students a basic historical frame for this ever-contentious issue than to deepen their understanding of its controversies and nuances, this chronological overview begins with the “three-fifths clause” in Article 1 of the 1787 Constitution. The authors then proceed to identify significant legislation and legal cases up to the 2020 settlement in Brakebill v. Jaeger, which protected voting rights for Native Americans living on reservations. Period images and brief commentary accompanying the timeline that runs throughout the pages create some context. The authors allude to unspecified “unfair treatment” or continuing “barriers” for marginalized groups and specific changes for better or worse on limiting who may vote. The authors rarely pause to examine the racist, sexist, or political mores and motives behind those stubbornly pervasive limits—largely leaving it to readers to research and draw their own conclusions about, for instance, the motives behind the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act or the 1901 “moral turpitude” tests for voter registration in Alabama. And to remind their audience of future voters that there are no age limits on activism, the authors switch tracks at the end with a nod to the young eco-litigators behind the still-pending Juliana v. United States lawsuit before closing with suggested activities and debate questions.

Sketchy but useful as a springboard for further research.