"The First Vote" of African Americans in Virginia in the November 16, 1867, Issue of Harper's Weekly (Original, hand colored, Framed Lithograph)

Alfred Rudolph Waud

Harper's Weekly, 1867

[Black Suffrage : The Fifteenth Amendment] Hand colored lithograph.  In wooden frame, mounted, under glass.  Framed dimensions: 17 3/4 x 14 1/4 inches. Print dimensions: 16 in x 11.25 in. This 1867 issue of Harper's Weekly shows black men lining up to cast their ballots. An older black man with white hair casts his first vote.  Behind him stand a well to do black businessman, a soldier in uniform, and other black men.  Congress had recently approved measures allowing African Americans the right to vote - a right later ratified in the 15th Amendment.   In 1867, 105,832 freedmen registered to vote in Virginia, and 93,145 voted in the 1867 election. Waud, a noted artist for Harper's during the Civil War, captured this historic moment in this print. 

Ref:  The First Vote drawn by A.R. Waud. Engraving published in Harper's Weekly, vol. 11, no. 568 (16 November 1867), Special Collections, Library of Virginia