The Struggle for Equality

Path to Abolishing Slavery The Constitutional Convention would have failed without a compromise on slavery. Counted slaves as 3/5ths of person Returned runaway slaves to their owners

In the Constitution What terms are used to describe African Americans?

The Framers Use terms like, “All other persons and such people”

What was the Missouri Compromise of 1820

Divided new lands into “slave” territories and “free” territories.

Who was Dred Scott?

Dred Scott Case 1857 A Slave from South Traveled and lived in North –Slavery was illegal in this territory After coming back to Missouri, Scott argued he should be free Court ruled that according to the Constitution – Slaves were property

14 th Amendment Ensured Citizenship for Citizens Takes power away from states to grant citizenship Sometimes called the 2 nd Bill of Rights

Did the 14 th Amendment ensure equal treatment of African Americans?

NO! Many states created new ways to segregate.

What is suffrage?

The Right to VOTE

15 th Amendment 1870 States may not deny the vote to any person on the basis of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” What did they forget????????

WOMEN!!!

24 th Amendment 1964 Southern states were using a poll tax to prevent African Americans from voting. This amendment made poll taxes illegal

The Path to Suffrage For African Americans For Women For Young Adults

African Americans Even though the Constitution banned slavery, the struggle for citizenship and right to vote had only just begun.

Women’s Suffrage Movement

When the Constitution was written, only white men had the right to vote. Women also did not have many other rights such as the right to own property or to be educated for certain jobs.

As time passed, many people came to feel that this was unfair and that women should have the same rights as men in our country. Women’s suffrage (right to vote) became an organized movement in 1848 at a convention in New York.

Women’s Suffrage Parade in New York City

Susan B. Anthony Susan B. Anthony was born February 15, 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts Arrested for voting in a presidential election Her speech, “We, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens……..”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton In 1851 Stanton met Susan B. Anthony and for the next fifty years they worked together. Stanton wrote and gave speeches that called for the improvement of the legal and traditional rights of women, and Anthony organized and campaigned to achieve these goals.

Lucretia Mott Lucretia Mott helped to organize and call together the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York in July of 1848.

Seneca Falls Convention We hold these truths to be self evident. 1848

Sojourner Truth Truth became a speaker on women's rights issues after attending a Women's Rights Convention in 1850.

One thing that had to be done, was to let the people of each state vote on the idea.

Finally after years of hard work, the 19 th Amendment was added to the Constitution of the United States in August of 1920.

Amendment XIX The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. The End (but really just the beginning)