For Teachers

Lesson Plan #2: Registering to Vote and Using Primary Documents to Understand the Freedom Movement: Voter Registration Application, Mississippi, 18 April 1955

Objectives:

• Students learn about voter registration for African Americans before the 1965 Voting Rights Act and consider why voting was important to African Americans and what obstacles they encountered.
• Students use primary sources to experience what black citizens endured to register to vote in the 1950's.

Materials:

• Copies of the Voter Registration Application, Mississippi, 18 April 1955 and the cluster essay on voter registration
• Could also include the following documents:
  • Affidavit, E.W. Steptoe, Amite County, Mississippi, January 1954
  • Poll tax receipt, Madison County, Mississippi, 1965
  • Flyer, NAACP, Poll Tax Campaign
  • Flyer, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, Jackson, Mississippi
  • Affidavit, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ruleville, Mississippi, 17 August 1968
  • Current voter registration forms
• One copy of the Mississippi State Constitution http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/law_lib_research/laws/msconst.html

Procedure:

• Students read the essay Voter Registration and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
• Students fill out copies of the 1955 Voter Registration Form and turn it into the teacher. They will need a copy of the Mississippi State Constitution to complete the form.
• Reject all the applications for various reasons -- the form wasn't filled out correctly, the interpretation of the constitution was wrong, or the answer for Question #20 about the duties and obligations of citizenship was incorrect.

Possible Discussion Topics:

• How and why African Americans faced obstacles in registering to vote.
• Use the other primary documents (listed under Materials above) about poll taxes and the importance of voting to extend the discussion into why voting rights were an important cause during the civil rights movement. Students could search the database under ìvoter registrationî to find additional documents.
• Ask students to consider how they felt when their applications were rejected.
• What do they understand about the Freedom Movement when they see the poll tax receipt that they didnít understand before they examined the primary documents?
• The Reverend Al Sharpton, in addressing the 2004 Democratic National Convention on July 28, noted that "Our vote was soaked in the blood of martyrs, soaked in the blood of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner, soaked in the blood of four little girls in Birmingham." How are the current attitudes of African American voters influenced by their experiences in the Freedom Movement? You can see the whole text of Sharpton's speech at American Rhetoric -- Reverend Al Sharpton: 2004 Democratic National Convention Address
• Pass out current voter registration forms and discuss the differences. How do students expect to be treated when they register to vote?