26th Amendment

Achieving the 26th Amendment

This book is a collection of primary source documents and analysis that illustrates the forgotten history of the fight to lower the voting age to eighteen in the twentieth-century United States. Proposed, passed, and ratified in 1971, the 26th Amendment gave the right to vote to 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds and prohibited discrimination in voting “on account of age.” Recognizing young Americans as first-class citizens with a political voice, it was the last time the United States extended voting rights to a new group. From the early 1940s to the early 1970s, Americans debated the merits of a younger voting age and built a movement across age, party, and regional differences for the 26th Amendment. The struggle for youth suffrage intersected with key events and developments during these years, such as World War II, the Vietnam War, the African American movement for civil and voting rights, the baby boom and youth activism. With historical images and excerpts from government documents, pamphlets, organizational and personal collections, mainstream and campus newspapers, and magazines, this book presents a rich portrait of the struggle for youth enfranchisement. Achieving the 26th Amendment: A History with Primary Sources is an ideal resource for students and professors in twentieth-century United States history, civics and government, and social movements and activism.

Passage and Ratification of the Twenty-sixth Amendment

"Let Us Vote!"

"Let Us Vote!" tells the fascinating tale of how a bipartisan coalition worked successfully to lower the voting age. Over a thirty-year period starting during World War II, Americans, old and young, Democrat and Republican, in politics and culture, built a movement for the 26th Amendment to the US Constitution, which lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen in 1971. This was the last time that the United States significantly expanded voting rights. "Let Us Vote!" provides an essential investigation of how this massive political change occurred, and how it could be brought about again--back cover.