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    The Standing Committee on the Law Library of Congress' new traveling exhibit, 100 Years After the Indian Citizenship Act: The Continuing Struggle to Guarantee Voting Rights to Native Americans is available to rent or purchase.  RESERVE TODAY

    100 Years After the Indian Citizenship Act: The Continuing Struggle to Guarantee Voting Rights to Native Americans

    Reserve Your Dates Now to Display Our New Traveling Exhibit at Your Organization

    The Standing Committee on the Law Library of Congress marks the 100th anniversary of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 with a new traveling exhibit, 100 Years After the Indian Citizenship Act: The Continuing Struggle to Guarantee Voting Rights to Native Americans. The seven-banner exhibit explores Native American Voting Rights long before the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 as well as how the Act failed to ensure Native American participation in elections. The passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 was neither the beginning nor the end of the struggle to gain voting rights for Native Americans. The exhibit spotlights tribal leaders and less known, yet extraordinary voting rights activists from all walks of life. The traveling exhibit builds off the success of its predecessors that reached over 225 venues nationwide: Magna Carta (2015-2018), 19th Amendment (2019-2022), and Mayflower Compact (2022-2023). Our new exhibit is on display nationwide through 2024 at law schools, state capitol buildings, state and local bar associations, courthouses, law firms, and national and local conferences. You are invited to display the traveling exhibit. To reserve the exhibit, please contact Anne P. Brown. Director, Standing Committee on the Law Library of Congress at [email protected].

     Rent or Purchase the exhibit - on Native American Voting Rights

    Equal Justice Conference 2024: Discussion on Native American Voting Rights

    The Struggle for Native American Voting Rights: From 1924 to 2024

    On May 10, 2024, the Standing Committee on the Law Library of Congress and the Standing Committee on Election Law co-hosted the program, The Struggle for Native American Voting Rights: From 1924 to 2024. The program was presented at the 2024 ABA/NLADA Equal Justice Conference in Detroit, Michigan. Presenters included Patty A. Ferguson-Bohnee, a member of the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe. She serves as Director of the Indian Legal Clinic, and Faculty Director of the Indian Legal Program at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. Ferguson-Bohnee was joined by Nick Allard, Dean, Jacksonville College of Law. Mr. Allard also serves as the chair of the Stranding Committee on the Law Library of Congress. Ferguson-Bohnee, and Allard discussed the fight for voting rights from the Indian Citizenship Act (and before it) to the Voting Rights Act, the present-day barriers members of indigenous communities' face in voting, and the state of litigation and legislative efforts to alleviate those barriers. 100 years ago, on June 2, 1924, the Indian Citizenship Act (ICA) declared that “all non-citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States.” But this sweeping declaration did not define the nature of that citizenship or indigenous communities' relationship to it, especially regarding one of the fundamental rights a citizen possesses – the right to vote. Tribes would have to continue to fight for decades after the ICA’s passage to obtain that right and today they continue to face unique burdens on exercising the franchise.

    Join In! The Rise of Self-Governance & American Organizing: Mayflower Compact to the Modern Day

    February 3, 2023: New Orleans, LA, 9:00-10:30 AM, Sheraton New Orleans Hotel, Ballroom A & B, 5th Floor

    Join In! The Rise of American Organizing: Democracy, Civil Society, and the American Bar Association. Keynote address by Johann Neem, Professor of History at Western Washington University. Professor Neem’s presentation will frame a discussion drawn from his book Creating a Nation of Joiners, examining the development of civil society following American independence and setting the stage for a panel discussion of the important role of coalition-building and professional associations in advancing societal and systemic change as well as safeguarding the rule of law. Former ABA President Judy Perry Martinez will facilitate the panel discussion.

    ABA Day 2025, SAVE THE DATE: April 9-10 | Washington, DC

    More information on ABA Day events will be posted soon. Stay tuned. Thank you.

    Enhanced seven banners

    Expanding Democracy: Women of Color in the Suffrage Movement

    The passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 did not guarantee full voting rights for all women. The long-fought struggle for the right to vote for Indigenous/Native, Black/African, Latina, and Asian American suffragists continued beyond 1920. Today, an ongoing struggle for voting inclusivity continues with a clarion call to take on present-day voter suppression.

    Learn More

    Indigenous/Native American Suffragist: Zitkála-Šá

    Learn More: Latina American - Adelina Otero-Warren

    "100 Years after the 19th Amendment: Their Legacy, and Our Future"