A new exhibit at the Mountain Gateway Museum, “A Place at the Polls,” examines the history of voting rights in the United States and how it played out in Western North Carolina. The exhibit runs through February 2025.
From the start of the nation, the question of who deserves the right to vote has been an ongoing debate. For generations, states primarily made those decisions, but wars, protests, and social changes caused the federal government to step in and create Constitutional Amendments to safeguard people’s access to their voting rights.
This exhibit examines what voting rights were nationally and in North Carolina after the Revolutionary War. Later, how various Amendments, from the 15th, which granted African American men the right to vote, to women’s suffrage through the 19th Amendment, affected the nation and N.C. The exhibit also looks at other federal laws and how they changed voter rights.
Artifacts, from voting machines to campaign buttons, will be on display. These artifacts come from the Asheville Museum of History, the Swannanoa Valley Museum, the Western Regional Archives, and the museum’s collection.
Mountain Gateway Museum is located less than a half-mile off Interstate 40’s exit 73 in the heart of downtown Old Fort. Just minutes away from Black Mountain and less than 30 minutes from downtown Asheville. The address is 24 Water Street, Old Fort, N.C. 28762.
For more information about this exhibit, visit the Mountain Gateway Museum’s website at www.mgmnc.org or contact Brittany Joachim at 828-668-9259 or [email protected].
The museum is open year-round from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and from 2-5 p.m. on Sunday; closed on Monday and state holidays. Admission is free.
Written by Brittany Joachim, North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.