This photograph is of Newark clergyman, Black abolitionist and voting civil rights activist Charles H. Thompson while a student at Oberlin. It is dated 1860. Several Black activists that would fight against slavery and for voting rights and suffrage attended the school. Like many of the pastors of Newark’s Plane Street Colored Church he would spend most of his life fighting for the rights of African Americans through the legislative, religious and higher education spheres.

In this photograph, Mitsuzo Funo, a Tenrikyo priest and Japanese immigrant from Hokkaido, who first came to California in the 1920s on a religious visa, casts his first ballot as an American citizen in what was likely the 1954 election. That same year Funo traveled to New York City from Seabrook Farms to bless a Shinto temple that the Museum of Modern Art had imported from Japan. Funo passed away in Chicago in 1986.

Some of the exhibit items displayed on this page may contain multiple images. Please click on the thumbnails to explore the exhibit items in greater detail.

Historically, the question of whether immigrants should have the right to vote in local, state, and national elections was open, with many states granting this right to unnaturalized, permanent residents. It was not until the 1920s that states, which determined eligibility to vote outside of constitutionally protected categories, uniformly purged immigrant voters from their rolls.

Until 1868 and the 14th Amendment’s ratification, Black Americans were denied citizenship despite their birthright. Asian immigrants, due to Congressional statutes that limited naturalization to “free-born whites” and in 1870 to those of African descent, were not permitted to become citizens until 1952. Other restrictions on naturalization disenfranchised Native Americans until 1924.

As this section explores, different groups have engaged in protracted battles for citizenship.. The artifacts below help us consider how the right to vote fits into the larger battle for full citizenship and equality.