Staff Pick: Pitt County Citizens Lined Up to Vote

Staff Person: Ralph Scott

Collection: Daily Reflector Negative Collection ECU Manuscript Collection #0741-b26-fe-v26.e.3

August 18th is the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The amendment prohibits the United States or any State from denying the right to vote on the basis of sex. In Congress, 76% of Republican Senators voted for the amendment, while 60% of Democratic Senators voted against it. Tennessee was the last of the thirty-six states needed to ratify the amendment. Illinois was the first to approve it but included the wrong language and had take another vote, thus making them the seventh state to ratify. The amendment went into effect on August 26th, 1920. At the time, several Western states had already given the vote to their citizens. While the amendment enfranchised 26 million females, it failed to guarantee the vote for many minorities including African American, Asian, LatinX, and Native women. Jim Crow policies in the South like literacy tests and poll taxes were enacted and laws denying naturalization to immigrants were a few of the legal restrictions preventing voting. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was instrumental in protecting the voting rights of minorities and the 26th Amendment eliminated the poll tax qualification. 

North Carolina failed to ratify the 19th Amendment until May 6,1971.

This photo shows a group of Pitt County Citizens in 1961 having their voter registration checked in order to vote.