Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-1-2025
Abstract
This curricular unit, deliverable in person or online, seeks to introduce students to the arc of voting rights in and adjacent to African American literature, including the practices of African American literacy in claiming and exercising the right to vote, from Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement. G. Ellis Harris’s North Carolina Constitutional Reader (1903) represents a textual artifact of African American agitation for literacy and thus the exercise of the right to vote following the termination of Reconstruction, and Alice Walker’s Meridian (1976), contextualized by Orlando Bagwell et al.’s Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement (1987), roots students in their own coming to consciousness and subsequent civic engagement. Culminating in a presentation by a state board of elections official supplemented by a quiz assessing understanding of current election law, the activity seeks to empower students with historical context, underscore the power of literacy and literature to cultivate civic consciousness, and prepare students to exercise their right to vote.
Recommended Citation
Hicks, Scott, "Item 2: Activity 1: African American Literacy, Literature, and Voting Rights" (2025). Scott Hicks, African American Literature. 2.
https://open.clemson.edu/hicks/2