Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The first formal voter literacy tests were introduced in 1890. At first, whites were generally exempted from the literacy test if they meet alternate requirements that in practice excluded blacks, such as a grandfather clause, or a finding of "good moral character", the latter's testimony of which was often asked only of white people.
Literacy tests varied in difficulty, with African-Americans often given more rigorous tests. In Macon County, Alabama in the late 1950s, for example, at least twelve whites who had not finished elementary school passed the literacy test, while several college-educated African-Americans were failed. Literacy tests were prevalent outside the ...
One of these prohibitions is prescribed in Section 201, which prohibits any jurisdiction from requiring a person to comply with any "test or device" to register to vote or cast a ballot. The term "test or device" is defined as literacy tests, educational or knowledge requirements, proof of good moral character, and requirements that a person be ...
The clause waived literacy tests and additional requirements for men whose descendants could vote before 1867, and African American men could not vote until 1870. Eric Foner, a Columbia University ...
As late as 1962, programs such as Operation Eagle Eye in Arizona attempted to stymie minority voting through literacy tests. [citation needed] The Twenty-fourth Amendment was ratified in 1964 to prohibit poll taxes as a condition of voter registration and voting in federal elections. Many states continued to use them in state elections as a ...
Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited use of literacy tests: Holding; A State may use a literacy test as a qualification for voters provided it is applied equally to all and is not intended to discriminate; it is part of its broad powers to determine the conditions under which the right of suffrage may be exercised. Court membership; Chief Justice
Lawmakers have tried before, but this might be the year that North Carolina moves to take the unenforceable Jim Crow-era literacy test for voters out of the constitution.
Voting in the 1972 Presidential Primary Election in Birmingham, Alabama. 1970. Alaska ends the use of literacy tests. [48] Native Americans who live on reservations in Colorado are first allowed to vote in the state. [54] 1971. Adults aged 18 through 21 are granted the right to vote by the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.