The First Vote

Reconstruction 360 uses a 360 degree video platform as a storytelling device that lets the audience step inside pivotal Reconstruction events. By clicking on icons within the 360 video the user can access short documentaries that offer the perspectives of multiple characters, historians and descendants. Reconstruction 360 also includes lesson plans, curriculum standards and primary documents.

In this module, The First Vote, join a group of new African American voters at a polling station in Virginia in 1867. Black and white U.S. Army soldiers are serving as poll workers, since the state of Virginia is under federal military rule, and two Confederate Army veterans are not pleased.

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The First Vote: Ballot Box | Reconstruction 360
The First Vote: Ballot Box | Reconstruction 360

Video

Grades: 7 8 9 10 11 12

A New York music store owner named Samuel C. Jollie created a glass ballot box, bringing literal transparency to the voting process. Voters inserted ballots through a small hole on the top of the box...
The First Vote: Craftsman | Reconstruction 360
The First Vote: Craftsman | Reconstruction 360

Video

Grades: 7 8 9 10 11 12

Before the Civil War the majority of free Black people lived in the South, where they couldn’t testify in court, learn to read, or travel without restrictions. But they survived and thrived as...
The First Vote: Freedwoman | Reconstruction 360
The First Vote: Freedwoman | Reconstruction 360

Video

Grades: 7 8 9 10 11 12

The wife of one of the Black voters has joined her husband for this historic event. Women saw enfranchisement of Black men as a gain for the entire race and encouraged men to adhere to the wishes of...
The First Vote: Poor Freedman | Reconstruction 360
The First Vote: Poor Freedman | Reconstruction 360

Video

Grades: 7 8 9 10 11 12

This new voter has very little money or belongings, but he has gained his freedom. After passage of the Reconstruction Acts, thousands of politically energized freedmen, rich and poor, registered to...
The First Vote: Returning Voter | Reconstruction 360
The First Vote: Returning Voter | Reconstruction 360

Video

Grades: 7 8 9 10 11 12

This man is one of the few African Americans who has already cast a ballot. In 1865, shortly before the end of the Civil War, a group of about a thousand Black men in Norfolk, Virginia formed the...