Constitution and Citizenship Day

Constitution Week 2023 is over, but you can still participate by learning more!

View Recording: The 14th Amendment: It's Not Just for Confederates Anymore!
Presented by Bruce Breeding, History Faculty | Jefferson Community and Technical College
Monday, September 18 | 12:00pm

View Recording: The State of American Democracy
Presented by Joshua Douglas, Law Faculty | University of Kentucky
Thursday, September 21 | 12:00pm

Voter Registration Drive
Register to vote before the deadline on October 10 at GoVote.ky.gov.

Check out our Constitution Day reading list on Libby.

You can watch recordings from previous Constitution week speaker sessions through the links below. Enjoy! 

•  Mattie Griffith Browne: Kentucky Abolitionist and Suffragist - Presentation by Megan Burnett 
  • The year 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote in the United States. Mattie Griffith Browne was a Kentucky Abolitionist and Suffragist who fought to make women’s voting rights possible, but whose name has largely been forgotten. Mattie Griffith Browne is not on the list of famous suffragettes or abolitionists, but she was both and made quite a stir in her time. Born to a family of wealth and privilege in the early 19th century in Louisville and raised in Owensboro, she received a formal education, became a prolific writer and was raised with slaves serving her family. In 1857, she wrote a novel, Autobiography of a Female Slave, to raise funds to free the slaves she inherited. For some time, people thought the book was an actual autobiography. When it became known that a white woman and not a former slave wrote the book, there was a scandal. She took a great risk in writing a book that would provide sympathy for enslaved Africans throughout the South. She took an even greater risk in freeing her slaves. Mattie’s life is a glimpse into her passion for freedom, citizenship, and voting rights for all Americans—black and white, male and female—at a time when these ideas were very controversial.
• The Constitutional Amendments and the Issue of Slavery - Presention by Bruce Breeding
  • While the Emancipation Proclamation freed enslaved persons in the states that were in rebellion, it said nothing about the institution of slavery itself.  What to do?  The Constitution would need to be amended.  Even then, issues of rights, freedoms and voting would remain.  Over the two decades following the end of the Civil War, congress and the legislatures of the states would face important decisions. Should the Constitution be amended further?  Should rights be expanded?  Should citizenship be expanded?  Should voting be expanded?  This talk will address how those questions were answered.  
• The Constitution and Slavery: Avoidance and Acceptance - Presentation by Bruce Breeding 
  • The framers wrestled with the most important political and social issue of their time; human slavery.  How did they resolve their conflict?  How did it shape the rest of the nation’s history?  Find out!
• I Got a Right to the Tree of Life: Women's Suffrage and African American Women's Voices - Presentation by Kathy Bullock
  • Through songs and stories this presentation will share the journey and the contributions of African American women in the struggle for the Right to Vote in the U.S. As part of the celebration of the centennial anniversary of the Woman’s Suffrage Movement, this program will highlight stories and struggles of African American women leaders, from the late 1870s up to the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and beyond.
• Five Myths about the Civil Rights Movement - Presentation by Carolyn DuPont
  • In spite of Americans’ almost universal willingness to embrace the idea of black equality and to retroactively applaud African Americans’ mid-20th century struggles to achieve it, popular depictions of the civil rights movement often reflect a shallow and even misguided understanding. This presentation will explore the misconceptions that shape our understanding of the civil rights movement, demonstrate how these faulty beliefs limit discussions of equality in the present, and offer evidence-based correctives to these myths.