The, The Greatest Threat Of Public Confidence

The United States first began to deal with the issue of voter suppression during the Reconstruction. During Reconstruction freed slaves earned their right to vote and hold office through the fifteenth amendment in 1870. In 1877, Democrats, known as Dixiecrats, began to impose laws that were designed to suppress the African American vote or better known as Jim Crow Laws. The Jim Crow voting laws required the freedmen to pass literacy tests that they were unable to pass because of no formal education because of their status of slaves. Many states created poll taxes, which many poor Americans, white and black, were unable to pay. Many precincts made their voting precincts “white only” so that blacks would have nowhere to cast their votes. The Jim Crow voter suppression tactics were so successful that only three percent of African Americans in the south were registered to vote in 1940. Although African American males were given the right to vote in

The right to vote for African American became difficult during the time because the northern didn’t want to consider the blacks as equal to the society. As Frederick Douglass, has once stated “Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot.” African American fought their way to gain their right to vote is by coming together, free blacks and emancipated slaves, to create parades, petition drives to demand, and to organize their own “freedom ballots.” As a free African American, they except the same respect as the whites and nothing

However, there was no law to restrict black American citizens from voting the American citizens saw fit to take it upon themselves to deny them the right to vote. Prior to the vigilantes, the government installed a literacy test for the purpose of determining whether one meets the requirements set by the government, “Literacy tests were used to keep people of color and, sometimes, poor whites from voting.” (The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow). Creating a situation where only the smartest could pass a test, including questions about government, office, and congress. Unfortunately, if an unwanted citizen passed, they were on many an occasion failed anyway, still, if you managed to pass you would have been forced to pay a poll tax that many African American citizens could not afford. If against all odds that you managed to pay and pass the poll tax and literacy test, you would then be confronted by many white vigilantes ‘warning’ you not to vote. The Jim Crow laws caused many a problem in numerous lives, however, through it all, people prevailed and Jim Crow laws were revoked from all states and were

“The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting.” In the 1880’s poll taxes and literacy requirements that afterward advocated African Americans to vote. Meanwhile Klan violence frightens from police and employers, blacks were still “protesting”about voting rights. As a result, there were over two dozen blacks serving in state congress across some

Slavery was not a word that was unknown in the United States of America; the word was at the tip of almost everyone’s tongue, only it came with many names. After the civil war, slavery became more pronounced for the black people. The south then thought something ought to be done and passed laws called the black codes which begun the limitation of blacks’ rights and separated them from the whites; white supremacy began. Before, these laws would have been unnecessary because most of the black people were slaves and they were already segregated in public places like schools and theatres. In 1866, Congress did not like this and they responded to these laws by putting a stop to it. Republicans had managed to begin reconstruction on the society and understand the black community. But in 1877 things took a turn for the worse when the Democratic parties recovered control and stopped the progress of reconstruction. This in turn caused the reverse of all the progress made in the past few years to understand the black community; they lost their rights to hold political seats, vote and generally participate as though they were members of the community. Slowly but surely, the south started to restore their racially unfair laws. The aim of the laws? To ensure segregation and alienation of the black community. One of the main powers taken away was the right to vote and they did this by imposing poll taxes, having expensive fees to be paid at the voting booths and

In the late 19th Century, Congress approved of three amendments to the Constitution: the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. The 13th Amendment ended slavery, the 14th granted citizenship to black people, and the 15th gave them the right to vote. At the same time, multiple Southern state legislatures passed Black Codes. These Black Codes prohibited blacks from renting or buying land, testifying in court, voting in some cases, and made a form of semibondage. Furthermore, these Codes directly violated the newly made amendments to the Constitution. This depicts how the South and their government leaders refused to follow the new amendments that they did not agree with hence revealing that their political views still haven’t changed since the Civil War. Additionally, the Plessy vs Ferguson Supreme Court Case legalized segregation as separate but equal. This showed the unwillingness of the South the fully accept the new amendments, especially the 13th and 14th amendments, and the legalization of blacks into citizens of the state. Michigan Senator Zachariah Chandler complained about this and more particularly Southern representation in Congress. He was outraged that there were 36 members of Congress from the South. He believed that this was against the 14th Amendment, since the South was disenfranchised. He also

Voting in the early 1800’s was limited to white landowning males who paid taxes; neither women, African American slaves, nor the non- landowning/ non-taxpaying white males had the right to contribute to the

This proved to be a very important act passed. The passing of the voting to African Americans was strongly not wanted. The Ku Klux Klan along with other hate groups tried to prevent the 15th Amendment from being in place by violence and intimidation. In view of that fact the practical question immediately is, whether that situation of things could be changed by legislation. And if it could, if the protection of those whom the Ku-Klux keeps from the polls by terror would prevent the national government falling into the hands of the Ku-Klux party, ought they not to be protected and the government saved”, The Ku Klux 1871. “Two decisions in 1876 by the Supreme Court narrowed the scope of enforcement under the Enforcement Act and the Force Act, and together with the end of Reconstruction marked by the removal of federal troops after the Hayes-Tilden Compromise of 1877, resulted in a climate in which violence could be used to depress black voter turnout and fraud could be used to undo the effect of lawfully cast votes”, Before the Voting Rights Act.

In the year 1870 the 15th amendment was passed. The fithteenth amendemt reads “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (Mcneese, Tim). But even though this was passed blacks still saw a problem voting. America started the Jim

On January 23, 1964, the 24th amendment was established and became known as an important part of the United States Constitution. The 24th amendment presented a law that would allow citizens of the U.S. the right to vote in an election for the President and Vice President regardless of the failure to pay tax. This particular amendment allowed for any individual to vote without the consideration of the race, gender, or socioeconomic status. The 24th Amendment was important during the Great Society then and now, because it was a small step towards abolishing inequality. Basically, without the 24th Amendment not everyone would have rights to vote not less they paid in not everyone was fortunate enough to pay poll taxes in order to vote. Poll taxes are basically known as methods that are for keeping the black votes to a minimum, which were declared

The National Newspaper Publishers Association also made efforts during this time to encourage greater Negro voter registration. It was quoted “We have seen men shot down in the streets as they moved to exercise the basic right of suffrage. We have seen, only recently, more than a dozen men in Mississippi lose their lives when they attempt to register to vote …” “This alone should motivate every eligible man and woman to resolve now to vote in the coming presidential election.” These statements tie in with my survey question: Do you think African Americans take for granted the voting rights their ancestors fought so long for?, majority of survey takers, a good 55% either agreed strongly or moderately.

Docket number forty-eight, is Virginia’s poll tax unconstitutional? Originally the poll tax was a prerequisite to voting. It would make the residents of Virginia pay a fee to vote in the electoral process. Each fee was about two dollars per person and per vote. That would be equivalent to about fifteen dollars in 2013 (Supreme 2). They would also discriminate towards poor whites and blacks who went in to vote. Even some women were not allowed either; which is against the 19th amendment which was ratified in 1920. In 1966, the residents of Virginia decided that their poll tax was unconstitutional and in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The clause states that “no state shall deny a person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” (Oyez, 1). The Virginia residents felt that the poll tax was violating that clause because they were not being treated equally at the polls, especially with the infringement of the tax. Annie Harper was the one who filed the suit against the Virginia Board in January of 1966. On March 24, 1966, the court came to a six to three decision for Harper (Oyez, 1). The court ruled that it was unconstitutional that fee payments or wealth,

Moves were made to disenfranchise the new voters; not only were the literacy and landowner voting laws and other “black codes” put into place, but an even crueler Southern icon came into play. With the Ku Klux Klan riding rampant in the

Docket number forty-eight, is Virginia’s poll tax unconstitutional? Originally the poll tax was a prerequisite to voting. It would make the residents of Virginia, and some other southern states residents, pay a fee to vote in the electoral process. Each fee was about two dollars per person and per vote, at that time the minimum wage had just been raised to $1.40 per hour. So you can see, the two dollars to vote was very much out of reach giving way to only the wealthy to call the vote as they want; which was generally not what the state, as a whole, needed to serve and help all the residents of Virginia. Should Docket number forty-eight, filed by Annie Harper, had failed in 1966, we could still have the poll tax. Which in today’s time, it would be the equivalent of about fifteen dollars in 2013 (Supreme 2). The general public would still not be able to afford their constitutional right to vote. Imagine not being able to vote in the 2016 elections. It was such an important, controversial and life changing vote that more people voted than anyone could have predicted. However, with the poll tax, most would still not be able to afford it. It would be left to the upper class, the ones with the money. The middle class and below would have to go voiceless because of the tax and discrimination, and lack of affordability, leaving citizens without a voice as to how and who should run our country. This caused descent and

It was a time of conflict, excitement, and confusion in the United States. And this was also “Black Power” of the Civil Rights Movement. Moody at that time was a member of NAACP. She was involved in her first sit-in, and her social science professor, John Salter, who was in charge of NAACP asked her to be the spokesman for a team that would sit-in at Woolworth’s lunch counter (Moody 1968, 286). Although she could go to jail for this, but she still agreed. After that, she joined CORE and continued to fight for the voting rights (Moody 1968, 311). Following passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, the struggle for racial justice moved to the next battleground: voting rights in the Deep South. The campaign was already under way in places like Selma, Alabama, where local activists, facing intense white resistance, asked Martin Luther King, Jr., and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference for support (Ayers 2010, 780). Black voter registration in the South was one of the great accomplishments of the civil rights movement. Within months of its passage, more than 2 million black southern were registered to vote. Most supported the Democratic Party of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, which had endorsed the cause of civil rights (Ayers 2010, 782).