Voting Impediments
"There is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter. Mississippi's constitutional convention was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the nigger from politics; not the ignorant -- but the nigger."
- James Kimble Vardaman, late Governor of Mississippi, 1904
- James Kimble Vardaman, late Governor of Mississippi, 1904
The Jim Crow era witnessed the rise of mandatory literacy tests, poll taxes, intimidation, and psychological discouragement, which decimated the black voting population. Only the forced removal of these discriminatory and overt policies would open the ballot box to all.
Disenfranchisement of Voters
"...the immediate, unconditional and universal enfranchisement of the Black man in every State of the Union. Without this, his liberty is a mockery; without this, you might as well almost retain the old name of slavery for this condition; for in fact, if he is not the slave of the individual master, he is the slave of society, and holds his liberty as a privilege not as a right."
- Fredrick Douglas, Abolitionist, April 1865
- Fredrick Douglas, Abolitionist, April 1865
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Voter Registration
"While in theory there were standard state-wide registration procedures, in real life the individual registrars did things their own way... and of course it almost always varied according to...race" - Civil Rights Movement Veterans Website |
"...people were threatened...put in jail just because we wanted to try and get people registered to vote"
Source: "Eyes on the Prize" documentary by PBS
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Poll tax
Source: Voting Rights and Citizenship
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"...in 1889, Southern states reintroduced the poll tax ... disenfranchising black voters..was designed to eliminate every negro voter who [could] be gotten rid of, legally, without materially impairing the numerical strength of the white electorate.'"
- Professor David F. Forte, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law |
Source: Poll Tax Receipts Navarro County, Texas
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Literacy Tests
Source: LBJ Exhibition: Mississippi literacy tests
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"On and after the first day of January, A. D. 1892, every elector shall, in addition to the foregoing qualifications, be able to read any section of the constitution of this state; or he shall be able to understand the same when read to him, or give a reasonable interpretation thereof." - Sec. 244, Constitution of Mississippi, 1892 |
"By the way, whats the big word?"
Source: Mauldin, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (1964)
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General Discouragement
"...the Ku Klux Klan was ready with violence and mayhem. Cross-burnings. Night riders. Beatings. Rapes. Church bombings...Murder and mob lynchings, ...the white establishment saw them as defenders of 'southern heritage' and the 'southern way of life."
- Civil Rights Movement Veterans Website
- Civil Rights Movement Veterans Website