Tobacco Road: Fighting for The Franchise

The last time we had a major, national student-led movement in America it resulted in the passing of a constitutional amendment. Read the story about the effort to lower the voting age and pay attention to how the tactics that students used then are being re-applied today.

“This is the year,” proclaimed Duke University student Bill Lowry in a 1967 interview with the school’s student newspaper, The Chronicle.[i] The interview was for an article covering Lowry’s newly founded organization, The Voting Age Council, whose goal was to pressure the North Carolina General Assembly to lower the voting age from 21 to 18. While Lowry’s proclamation was ultimately proven wrong, he was on to something. America was changing in a way that made the prospect of lowering the voting age seem not so outlandish. Four years later in 1971, Lowry’s prediction finally came true with the passage of the 26th Amendment. The Amendment was ratified in less than a year, the fastest ratification of a constitutional amendment in United States history, to the cheers of young organizers and activists across the country. The Youth Suffrage Movement was united by the phrase, “old enough to fight, old enough to vote,” boasted thousands of supporters, and enjoyed dozens of allied organizations. The Movement oversaw a startling shift in public opinion, garnered public support from a bi-partisan cohort of lawmakers, and even commissioned its own theme song. But what accounted for this success? What lessons are there to learn from the Youth Suffrage Movement? And what was it about 1971 that made it “the year”? In this piece, I argue that the energy, infrastructure and human capital of The Anti-war and Civil Rights Movements contributed significantly to the success of the Youth Suffrage Movement leading it to become one of the most powerful student movements in United States history. Ultimately, however, The Movement struggled to have significant impact on national electoral politics.

When students, lawmakers, political operatives, homemakers and war veterans began uniting around a call to lower the voting age, they were following in the footsteps of Americans throughout history who questioned limitations on who had a right to The Franchise. Like most things from colonial America, the 21 standard originated in England. 21 was the age in medieval times when men were considered ready for knighthood.[ii] Of course, age wasn’t the only restriction placed on voting at the time. At our country’s founding, only property-owning men were permitted to vote. Women, blacks, the poor, and the young were entirely disenfranchised.

Though these restrictions changed over time with the passage of the 14th, 15th, and 19th amendments; nearly 196 years after the founding of our country, Americans under the age of 21 were still not allowed to engage the democratic process in the most fundamental way. This was not due to a lack of interest. The first recorded attempt to lower the voting age occurred at the Missouri state constitutional convention in 1820 and failed by only one vote.[iii] In 1943, nearly 30 years before the passage of the 26th Amendment, students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Dialectic Senate passed a resolution petitioning the North Carolina General Assembly to “lower the legal voting age from twenty-one to eighteen years of age.”[iv] Following that action was an editorial in the school’s paper, The Daily Tar Heel supporting the resolution and calling for movement from the General Assembly.[v] In fact, calls to lower the voting age have occurred following the Civil War, World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War. [vi]

However, as evidenced by its grassroots support, impact on public opinion, and significant political victories culminating in the passage of a constitutional amendment, the late 1960s, and early 1970s Youth Suffrage Movement was different. Groups like the California-based “Let Us Vote” (LUV) and the North Carolina-based “Voting Age Council” gained rapid grassroots support after their founding.

LUV, founded in December 1968, grew to 327 college chapters and 3,000 high school divisions within six months.[vii] The Voting Age Council, founded by Duke University student Bill Lowry, expanded to six chapters across the state of North Carolina within a year’s time.[viii] Public opinion also shifted during this time. According to Gallup, while only 17 percent of people favored lowering the voting age to 18 in 1939, by 1971 a whopping 60 percent of Americans favored extending the franchise to 18,19, and 20-year-olds for all elections.[ix] And of course, as public opinion changes, as do the politicians. By 1969 both major political parties and the President himself were in public support of the youth suffrage movement.[x]

So what accounted for this breathtaking success? The remainder of this piece will serve to outline exactly what set apart this moment in American history and propelled the youth suffrage movement to such great heights.

Two sources of grassroots energy that contributed to the youth suffrage movement were the opposition to the war in Vietnam and support for civil rights which deeply engaged thousands of students in the political process. In 1971, nineteen Student Body Presidents from around North Carolina inserted themselves in national politics with a letter sent to candidates for public office at every level. In short, the letter outlined a set of issue positions these students felt were non-negotiable for any politician seeking the “youth vote.” To conclude their statement, the students added, “The people who have been obstacles in the paths of progress for the last decade will be removed from office by a new generation of voters. We will be part of that generation”.[xi] Little did they know at the time, they’d be voting earlier than they thought.

Students were so itching to play a larger role in the political process that in some cases, non-governmental organizations held mock elections on college campuses to allow students the chance to express their political preferences despite being too young to vote.[xii] One such mock election at sponsored by Time-Life, Inc. brought nearly 2,000,000 students from 2,500 college campuses out to vote.[xiii] Duke University was one of those campuses, and thousands of students participated.

But it wasn’t just about voting. Student anti-war protests during this time period in Iowa[xiv]and around the country as well as anti-segregation sit-ins in Greensboro and 55 other cities led to thousands of student arrests. The Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964 gave many students their first taste of grassroots organizing. The energy and engagement during this period shifted the political consciousness of many students and challenged long-held notions about the role young people can and should play in not only the political process but American society broadly. But energy and interest alone isn’t enough to pass a constitutional amendment, especially when your primary constituency can’t vote.

Drawing on the chapter based growth concept and the non-violent organizing techniques of the civil rights movement, the youth suffrage movement employed a number of strategies to grow their coalition of student and even adult support. Students involved in a youth suffrage group on UNC Chapel Hill’s campus in 1969 circulated a petition amongst their classmates soliciting support for lowering the voting age.[xv] The movement grew quickly through the support and growth of local organizations. In addition to the Youth Voting Council and the LUV organization, there was the Youth Franchise Coalition, Vote-18, and The Student Vote all working to further the Youth Suffrage Movement.

These organizations maintained thousands of chapters and engaged tens of thousands of young people and elected officials across the country. On at least one occasion in 1969, the Youth and College Division of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) brought several of these groups together in Washington, D.C. to hold a National Youth Mobilization to Lower the Voting Age.[xvi]

By January 1971 the political winds took over and US Senator Jennings Randolph, joined by 68 co-sponsors, introduced a resolution proposing a constitutional amendment to lower the voting age. By July 1st, 1971, 32 states had ratified the 26th amendment. The last state to ratify the amendment prior to its adoption was North Carolina. The voting age of 18 was now the law of the land.

These efforts required a wide-range of resources but, the students had help. The Civil Rights movement served as a source of direct support for and in some cases even explicitly shared resources and organizers with the Youth Suffrage Movement. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one group aligned with the youth suffrage movement was founded by African American student Kelly Alexander, who at the time was the president of the UNC chapter of the NAACP. The rally in DC mentioned earlier was part of a concerted effort by the NAACP and other activist organizations who saw The Youth Suffrage Movement as a natural ally to the fight for African American liberation.[xvii] Another similar convening was hosted at the Georgetown Law Center in 1971 sponsored by the Student Vote, the League of Women Voters, and the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.[xviii]

The Student Vote was a national organization started in the 1970s. At one point, the organization reported having registered 439,470 18–21 year-olds nation-wide. Such a huge effort required dozens of field organizers, many of whom were hired straight from the Voter Education Project and Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee.[xix] Partnerships with historically black colleges and universities helped to buttress these efforts and black publications were even utilized to spread the word about the youth suffrage movement and their efforts.[xx] Another national organization named “Frontlash” was founded by former civil rights and labor organizer Penn Kemble. The organization was almost exclusively funded by the AFL-CIO and the NAACP and focused singularly on registering and mobilizing young people to vote. In short, at crucial moments and in key areas of the youth suffrage movement, the effort was almost indistinguishable from the civil rights movement.

Despite the many similarities however, there were some important differences in tactics between some youth suffrage organizers and civil rights organizers. For example, the Voting Age Council in North Carolina included provisions in their founding documents declaring that they would not engage in protests as a form of advocacy.[xxi] Additionally, while there was broad disagreement within the Civil Rights movement as to the most effective mechanism for affecting change, the youth suffrage movement largely seemed on the same page. Change would come through institutional and legislative action at the state and national level.[xxii]

Of course, these differences in strategy could be explained by two important factors. First, unlike the Civil Rights Movement, the Youth Suffrage Movement was overwhelmingly popular amongst the public around the time many groups began pushing hard for a constitutional amendment. This lessened the need for advocates to focus on winning over hearts and minds. Second, the two movements had very different goals. The Youth Suffrage Movement, at least in the beginning, was chiefly about changing a single legal standard; the right to vote. This stood in stark contrast with the civil rights movement which had the intimidating task of dismantling a centuries-old system of social and economic exploitation.

Despite stunning shifts in public opinion, there were still many adults and young people who were resistant, and in some cases outright opposed, to the efforts of the Youth Suffrage Movement. The nature of the opposition from both groups ranged from a disbelief that young people were independent enough from their parent’s to make rational choices[xxiii] to a concern that young people were too susceptible to demagoguery.[xxiv] In a 1971 LA Times article, UCLA student Nancy Wolf cast doubt on her peer’s ability to handle the responsibility of the franchise. “I think they will tend to vote on what their friends say, or general rumor, such as reading one newspaper, picking up an opinion and letting it go at that,” she said. And of course, there was the political calculus.

Citing youth registration, public opinion polls, and organizing efforts by the Democratic Party, many media pundits and political operatives theorized that the Youth Suffrage Movement would be a boom for the democratic effort to defeat President Richard Nixon. In the 1972 election, there were over 11.2 million 18–20 year olds who had the opportunity to exercise their rights to vote in a presidential election for the first time.[xxv] Unfortunately for President Nixon, polls during the time showed underwhelming support for his re-election amongst newly enfranchised voters.[xxvi] One Gallup poll conducted in 1971 found that the Democrats had a 42 percent to 18 percent lead over Republicans among 18–21 year olds. It wasn’t just Nixon they disapproved of, but many of his policies, especially those related to Vietnam. Support among this age group for the Vietnam war was small, to say the least.

The Democratic party sensed an opportunity, and in 1971 former congressman and Democratic operative Allard Lowenstein began traveling the country as part of the “Dump Nixon” campaign. While the campaign had several goals, the core strategy was to register and mobilize thousands of 18–20 year olds to vote against Nixon in the upcoming election.[xxvii] And while Nixon’s campaign manager at the time scoffed at suggestions that the Republican Party couldn’t reach out to young voters[xxviii], these political fears quickly turned into outright hostility towards the newly enfranchised youth.

The efforts employed to try and prevent youth voting even after the passage of the 26th amendment mirrored those of the post-reconstruction era and Jim Crow South. In some states, officials made registering to vote difficult. By 1971 only six states allowed college students to register to vote in the towns in which they were attending school.[xxix] In North Carolina, for example, students were only allowed to register to vote where they were attending school if they intend “in good faith” to continue to reside in the town upon graduation. [xxx]

Students also reported encountering other barriers like extraneous questions and long registration forms by election board officials, many of which went un-reviewed for months.[xxxi] The absentee ballot rules in North Carolina at the time presented a further barrier to the youth vote. Absentee ballots could only be administered if you planned to be out of the state at the time of the election and could not be administered at all for primary elections. An editorial in the Duke student newspaper, The Chronicle, at the time points out that since the primary that year was set to occur during final exam period and the run-off during the semester break when many students were away from campus, this rule limits student ability to engage.[xxxii] Operatives like Lowenstein tried pushing back on these efforts by holding massive student registration drives and information sessions about their right to vote.[xxxiii] His efforts ultimately landed him the number seven spot on President Nixon’s famous “Enemies List.”

While Lowenstein and others saw some success, like the Civil Rights Movement, the real victories came in the courts. In 1973 the Fifth Circuit Court ruled in Whatley v. Clark that a Texas law establishing a presumption that students are transient and requiring them to prove otherwise is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. Five years later in another case related to Texas, a federal court prohibited a local county registrar from requiring student applicants for voter registration to complete a questionnaire that is not required of other applicants on the basis that it violated the 26th amendment. And finally, in 1986, Williams v. Salerno was decided by the U.S. Second Circuit Court banning rules preventing students who live in dormitories from registering to vote.[xxxiv]

These cases were decided too late for the 1972 election, however, and while the Youth Suffrage Movement was able to overcome many of the attempts to suppress their voting bloc by drawing on the civil rights, and in some cases woman’s rights, infrastructure that had sustained them through the passage of a constitutional amendment, the massive youth vote Democrats obsessed over and Republicans feared never materialized. In the 1972 election, only 49.6% of 18–24 year olds came out to vote.[xxxv] This was 14% less than the age group directly above them, 25–44 year olds and the highest turnout rate for 18–24 year olds for the remainder of the century.[xxxvi] Even Barack Obama only managed to turn out 48.5% of 18–24 year olds.[xxxvii] Despite the energy, organizing, and advocacy that ultimately led to a constitutional amendment thousands of young people across the country registered to vote, the youth vote never materialized, and Nixon went on to win re-election.

However, there are some bright spots where student organizing on the local level was able to make a real difference in electoral politics. For example, in the 1971 local elections in Iowa student voters organized in mass with great success. In Iowa City, where anti-Vietnam War protests had been the among the largest and most confrontational in the state, five students ran for city council.[xxxviii] While none survived the primary, the student endorsed candidate went on to win the seat. In Cedar Falls, graduate student Jon Crews worked actively to register students to vote and then launched a successful bid for Mayor, a seat he held until 2015.[xxxix] And finally, at Iowa State University, students chose not to run themselves but instead actively recruited and endorsed an older member of the Ames community for each open seat. This strategy, executed by the student group Coalition for Responsive City Government, proved very effective. [xl]

“I believe this is the most important single principle we can pursue as a Nation if we are to succeed in bringing our youth into full and lasting participation in our institutions of democratic government,” said Edward Kennedy during a floor speech in the US Senate in May 1970 in support of lowering the voting age. Students in the gallery at the time cheered in response. There have been many student movements over time in America, each with varying tactics and goals. However, none have accomplished the arduous task of passing an Amendment to the US Constitution as the 1970s Youth Suffrage movement did. Understanding how and why these students were able to be so successfully is critical for youth activists today who aim to affect change in their communities. The key lesson? Build on existing resources. At every turn and in sometimes unexpected ways, the Youth Suffrage movement was able to leverage the energy, resources, and capital (human and political) of the civil rights and anti-war movements to propel their effort forward. While 18–21 year olds have failed to turn out to vote at numbers any higher than older age groups, they remain a consequential demographic in elections, especially local ones, to this day. The new question now? When will 16 year-olds be granted the opportunity to participate in the franchise?

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[i] Lovington, Mark. “Duke Group Predicts Voting Age Will Drop.” The Chronicle, March 9, 1967. http://contentdm.lib.duke.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15957coll13/id/12010/rec/50.

[ii] Engdahl, Sylvia, ed. Amendment XXVI, Lowering the Voting Age. Constitutional Amendments, Beyond the Bill of Rights. Vol. Amendment XXVI. Missouri: Christine Nasso, 2010. [15]

[iii] Ibid. [16]

[iv] The Editorial Board. “A Clause in Our State Constitution Denies Us Our Stake In The World.” The Daily Tar Heel, February 28, 1943.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Engdahl, Sylvia, ed. Amendment XXVI, Lowering the Voting Age. Constitutional Amendments, Beyond the Bill of Rights. Vol. Amendment XXVI. Missouri: Christine Nasso, 2010. [23–30]

[vii] Engdahl, Sylvia, ed. Amendment XXVI, Lowering the Voting Age. Constitutional Amendments, Beyond the Bill of Rights. Vol. Amendment XXVI. Missouri: Christine Nasso, 2010. [26]

[viii] Lovington, Mark. “Duke Group Predicts Voting Age Will Drop.” The Chronicle, March 9, 1967. http://contentdm.lib.duke.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15957coll13/id/12010/rec/50.

[ix] Engdahl, Sylvia, ed. Amendment XXVI, Lowering the Voting Age. Constitutional Amendments, Beyond the Bill of Rights. Vol. Amendment XXVI. Missouri: Christine Nasso, 2010. [130]

[x] Gooding, Tom. “NAACP Leads Local Fight To Lower The Voting Age.” The Daily Tar Heel, April 13, 1969.

[xi] Allard Lowenstein Papers, Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill. Box 61

[xii] “Students Get To Vote In April Primary.” The Chronicle, December 6, 1967.

[xiii] Ibid.

[xiv] Engdahl, Sylvia, ed. Amendment XXVI, Lowering the Voting Age. Constitutional Amendments, Beyond the Bill of Rights. Vol. Amendment XXVI. Missouri: Christine Nasso, 2010. [142]

[xv] Gooding, Tom. “NAACP Leads Local Fight To Lower The Voting Age.” The Daily Tar Heel, April 13, 1969.

[xvi] Engdahl, Sylvia, ed. Amendment XXVI, Lowering the Voting Age. Constitutional Amendments, Beyond the Bill of Rights. Vol. Amendment XXVI. Missouri: Christine Nasso, 2010. [23]

[xvii] Ibid.[24]

[xviii] Allard Lowenstein Papers, Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill. Box 61

[xix] Allard Lowenstein Papers, Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill. Box 61

[xx] “The Blackboard.” The Black Scholar, May 1, 1972. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00064246.1972.11431238.

[xxi] Douglas M. Knight records, 1949–1970, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Box 23.

[xxiii] Engdahl, Sylvia, ed. Amendment XXVI, Lowering the Voting Age. Constitutional Amendments, Beyond the Bill of Rights. Vol. Amendment XXVI. Missouri: Christine Nasso, 2010. [46]

[xxiv] Ibid [48]

[xxv] Ibid. [133]

[xxvi] Ibid.[133]

[xxvii] Allard Lowenstein Papers, Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill. Box 61

[xxviii] Engdahl, Sylvia, ed. Amendment XXVI, Lowering the Voting Age. Constitutional Amendments, Beyond the Bill of Rights. Vol. Amendment XXVI. Missouri: Christine Nasso, 2010. [133]

[xxix] The Editorial Board. “The Right To Vote.” The Chronicle, September 30, 1971. http://contentdm.lib.duke.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15957coll13/id/47295/rec/25.

[xxx] Ibid.

[xxxi] Jannson, Erik. 1970. “The Student Vote.” New Republic 163, no. 12: 11–12. The New Republic Archive, EBSCOhost (accessed April 28, 2017).

[xxxii] The Editorial Board. “The Right To Vote.” The Chronicle, September 30, 1971. http://contentdm.lib.duke.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15957coll13/id/47295/rec/25.

[xxxiii] Allard Lowenstein Papers, Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill. Box 61

[xxxiv] Engdahl, Sylvia, ed. Amendment XXVI, Lowering the Voting Age. Constitutional Amendments, Beyond the Bill of Rights. Vol. Amendment XXVI. Missouri: Christine Nasso, 2010. [202]

[xxxv] Engdahl, Sylvia, ed. Amendment XXVI, Lowering the Voting Age. Constitutional Amendments, Beyond the Bill of Rights. Vol. Amendment XXVI. Missouri: Christine Nasso, 2010. [146]

[xxxvi] Ibid[146]

[xxxvii] Kirby, Emily H. “The Youth Vote in 2008.” Circle (September 17, 2009): 1–8.

[xxxviii] Engdahl, Sylvia, ed. Amendment XXVI, Lowering the Voting Age. Constitutional Amendments, Beyond the Bill of Rights. Vol. Amendment XXVI. Missouri: Christine Nasso, 2010. [142]

[xxxix] Crutcher, Ally. “Jon Crews Dropping Out of Cedar Falls Mayoral Runoff.” Kwwl, 11–05–17. http://www.kwwl.com/story/30445805/2015/11/Thursday/jon-crews-dropping-out-of-cedar-falls-mayoral-runoff.

[xl] Engdahl, Sylvia, ed. Amendment XXVI, Lowering the Voting Age. Constitutional Amendments, Beyond the Bill of Rights. Vol. Amendment XXVI. Missouri: Christine Nasso, 2010. [143]