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This essay explores the deadly Ku Klux Klan attack on the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. It details where and why the four victims—Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley—were in the basement of the church on that morning, and summarizes the sentiments expressed across the country following their deaths.

Septima Clark was an African-American educator and civil rights activist. The following excerpt is from a 1976 interview with Clark for the Southern Oral History Program Collection.

In this article, Suzanne Bilyeu details how the sit-in by the "Greensboro Four" at Woolworth's store in North Carolina created a domino effect which led to sit-ins across the country and galvinized support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

This 1974 print depicts Bloody Sunday, when a group of nonviolent protestors marching for voting rights in 1965 faced police violence at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala.

This article examines the history of the 19th Amendment, which secured the right to vote for women. It examines women's participation at the polls since then and considers the possibility and impact of greater numbers of women in public office.

In 1920, Tennessee lawmaker Harry Burn followed his mother’s advice on a controversial vote—and changed voting rights history.