First Washington, D.C., Vote for President
The Twenty-third Amendment, ratified on March 29, 1961, granted District of Columbia residents the right to vote for president of the United States.
On this day, they voted for the first time in a presidential election.
The 23rd Amendment: “The District constituting the seat of government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a state, but in no event more than the least populous state; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the states, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a state; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.”
Learn about the long struggle for the voting rights of D.C. residents: http://dcvote.org/
Take the civil rights history tour of Washington, DC: http://washington.org/dc-itinerary/dc-itinerary-major-civil-rights-sites-1-day
Learn more: Harry Jaffe, Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington (1994)
Read about the struggle for the right to vote: Ari Berman, Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America (2015)
Visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture here