Entertainment

When the Right to Vote Wasn’t a Right

New Documentary

The new PBS documentary Freedom Summer lays bare a Deep South world where African Americans risked jobs, homes, and their lives for the right to vote.

articles/2014/06/23/when-the-right-to-vote-wasn-t-a-right/140623-freedom-summer-porch-tease_vtvici
George Ballis/Take Stock; Courtesy PBS

In 1890, a delegation appointed by the Mississippi state legislature convened in Jackson to adopt a new state constitution. As one of the delegates candidly explained to the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Mississippi’s leading newspaper, the legislature wanted a new constitution for one reason: “The avowed purpose of calling this Convention was...

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