Vote suppression

Vote suppression prevents eligible citizens from exercising their right to vote. It has been used to discriminate based on race, gender, age, and disability.

In the mid-1500s, European mariners brought black Africans to America as enslaved plantation workers.

The forced migration that occurred was unparalleled in the history of the United States.

Enslaved people developed a solid cultural identity. By the 1850s, abolitionism was growing in the North, causing the Southern states to fear the federal government would attempt to end slavery. In the North, white people and free blacks united and demanded the abolition of slavery.

Abraham Lincoln, a member of the anti-slavery Republican Party, was elected as President of the United States of North America in 1860. His election precipitated the separation of 11 Southern states: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina threatened to secede. Together, the eleven states formed the Confederate States of America. Resulting in a devastating civil war. A war between the United States and the Confederate States of America. A four-year war from 1861 to 1865.