Civil Rights Movement

Voting Rights: Are You "Qualified" to Vote?

Take a "Literacy Test" to Find Out

Literacy Tests & Voter Applications

Background

Alabama

Georgia

Louisiana:

Mississippi

South Carolina

Background

Today, most citizens register to vote without regard to race or color by signing their name and address on something like a postcard. But it was not always so.

Prior to passage of the federal Voting Rights Act in 1965, Southern states maintained elaborate voter registration procedures deliberately designed to deny the vote to nonwhites.

This process was often referred to as a "literacy test," a term that had two different meanings — one specific and one general. Some states used an actual reading test. But the test results were rigged by biased registrars who were the sole judges whether — in their opinion — you were sufficiently "literate" to "pass." They often did not require white applicants to take the test at all, or always "passed" those who did. Black applicants were almost always required to take the test, even those with college degrees, and they were almost always deemed to have "failed."

The more general use of "literacy test" referred to the complex, interlocking systems used to deny Afro-Americans (and in some regions, Latinos and Native Americans) the right to vote so as to ensure that political power remained exclusively white-only. In addition to tests and registration procedures, these systems of racial discrimination and oppression included poll taxes, police power & intimidation, economic retaliation, and violent white- terrorism. It is in this general sense that the term "literacy test" is applied to those southern states that did not us an actual reading test.

Poll taxes . A "poll tax" was a tax you had to pay in order to vote. At one time, state and local poll taxes were common, but by the mid-20th Century they were mainly limited to the South as a means of preventing Blacks and poor whites from voting. State poll taxes ranged from $1 to $5 per year, and some towns and counties levy additional local poll taxes. In Mississippi, for example, the state's poll tax was $2 per year (equal to $15 in 2012). That might not sound like a lot of money, but for impoverished families feeding their children on free federal "commodity" food it was a sum that forced them to choose between voting and necessities of life. And many of those at the very bottom of the economic ladder — sharecroppers, tenant farmers, agricultural laborers, coal miners, timber workers, and so on — existed entirely outside the cash economy. They had to buy their necessities at over-priced plantation or company stores on credit and their pay went directly to the store, not them.

. A "poll tax" was a tax you had to pay in order to vote. At one time, state and local poll taxes were common, but by the mid-20th Century they were mainly limited to the South as a means of preventing Blacks and poor whites from voting. State poll taxes ranged from $1 to $5 per year, and some towns and counties levy additional local poll taxes. In Mississippi, for example, the state's poll tax was $2 per year (equal to $15 in 2012). That might not sound like a lot of money, but for impoverished families feeding their children on free federal "commodity" food it was a sum that forced them to choose between voting and necessities of life. And many of those at the very bottom of the economic ladder — sharecroppers, tenant farmers, agricultural laborers, coal miners, timber workers, and so on — existed entirely outside the cash economy. They had to buy their necessities at over-priced plantation or company stores on credit and their pay went directly to the store, not them. Police intimidation . The various state, county, and local police forces  all white of course  routinely intimidated and harassed Blacks who tried to register. They arrested would-be voters on false charges and beat others for imagined transgressions; and often this kind of retribution was directed not only at the man or woman who dared try to register, but against family members as well, even the children.

. The various state, county, and local police forces  all white of course  routinely intimidated and harassed Blacks who tried to register. They arrested would-be voters on false charges and beat others for imagined transgressions; and often this kind of retribution was directed not only at the man or woman who dared try to register, but against family members as well, even the children. Economic retaliation . Throughout the deep South, white businesses, employers, banks, and landlords were organized into White Citizens Councils who inflicted economic retaliation against nonwhites who tried to vote. Evictions. Firings. Boycotts. Foreclosures. Small-scale farmers needed a crop loan each year in order to buy seed, fertilizer, fuel, and food until they could sell their cotton or tobacco after picking. Banks denied those loans to Blacks who tried to vote, forcing them off the land.

. Throughout the deep South, white businesses, employers, banks, and landlords were organized into White Citizens Councils who inflicted economic retaliation against nonwhites who tried to vote. Evictions. Firings. Boycotts. Foreclosures. Small-scale farmers needed a crop loan each year in order to buy seed, fertilizer, fuel, and food until they could sell their cotton or tobacco after picking. Banks denied those loans to Blacks who tried to vote, forcing them off the land. White terrorism. And if economic pressure proved insufficient, the Ku Klux Klan was ready with violence and mayhem. Cross-burnings. Night riders. Beatings. Rapes. Church bombings. Arson of businesses and homes. Murder and mob lynchings, drive-by shootings and sniper assassinations. Today these people would be called "terrorists," but back then the white establishment saw them as defenders of the "southern way of life" and upholders of "our glorious southern heritage."

While in theory there were standard state-wide registration procedures, in real-life the individual county Registrars and clerks did things their own way. The exact procedure varied from county to county, and within a county it varied from day to day according to the mood of the Registrar. And, of course, it almost always varied according to the race of the applicant.

— © Bruce Hartford

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