9 The Fight For the Vote From Jim Crow to the Present
Murray Carlisle
Introduction
The United States prides itself on being a beacon of democracy, however, many Americans have struggled to gain the right to vote throughout American history. African Americans are one of the groups of American citizens who have struggled to gain the right to vote. That story will be told through a series of primary documents that will require students to confront America’s racist past and its problematic present. Students will examine an Alabama literacy test from the 1960s, a legal affidavit of African Americans denied the chance to register to vote and a document that explores the nonviolent direct action tactics that were prevalent during the Black freedom struggle of the 1960s.
Framework
Concentrating upon Black Historical Consciousness Principles: 2. Black Agency, Resistance, and Perseverance, from LaGarrett J. King’s (2020) “Black History is Not American History: Toward a Framework of Black Historical Consciousness” students will be able to answer the question “How do African Americans make social change?”.
Pedagogical Applications
Students will use a variety of primary documents to develop an understanding of the struggle for African Americans to attain full suffrage rights in the United States. Students will examine the following primary documents: a literacy test from the state of Alabama for white and Black applicants, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, interviews with Black Southerners who attempted to register to vote and excerpts from the 2012 Supreme Court decision, Shelby County vs. Holder.
| Essential Question |
In What Ways Have States Limited the Right to Vote? |
|---|---|
| Standards |
|
| Staging |
Review with students the struggle African Americans have encountered in order to vote in the United States. Ask students about the barriers that states erected to prevent Black suffrage. |
| Supporting Question 1 |
How did Southern states make voter registration difficult? |
| Formative Performance Task |
Students will read and analyze an Alabama literacy test from the 1960s. Students will answer guiding questions that are found on the primary document. |
| Featured Sources |
Alabama literacy test: [https://www.crmvet.org/info/littest.htm] |
| Supporting Question 2 |
What tactics did Southern election officials use to deny Black voters the right to vote? |
| Formative Performance Task |
Students will read and analyze legal affidavits from two Black citizens in Lee County Georgia who attempted to register to vote. The affidavits were taken by a SNCC volunteer. Students will answer guiding questions found on the primary document. |
| Featured Sources |
Primary Document: Legal Affidavits from Black citizens in Lee County Georgia taken by representatives of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (pdf). |
| Summative Performance Task |
Engage students in a Socratic Seminar on voting in the United States today. Students will take part in a class discussion on various reforms that have been passed in states across the country regarding voting and voter registration. This culminating activity will require students to activate knowledge from classroom instruction, primary and supplemental documents and the excerpt below from The New Yorker ‘Drawing Lines” by Louis Menand. “Last year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, legislatures in nineteen states passed thirty-four laws imposing voting restrictions. In Florida, it is now illegal to offer water to someone standing in line to vote. Georgia is allowing counties to eliminate voting on Sundays. In 2020, Texas limited the number of ballot-drop-off locations to one per county, insuring that Loving County, the home of fifty-seven people, has the same number of drop-off locations as Harris County, which includes Houston and has 4.7 million people. Virtually all of these “reforms” will likely make it harder for some people to vote, and thus will depress turnout—which is the not so subtle intention. This is a problem, but it is not the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem is that, as the law stands, even when the system is working the way it’s designed to work and everyone who is eligible to vote does vote, the government we get does not reflect the popular will. Michael Kinsley’s law of scandal applies. The scandal isn’t what’s illegal. The scandal is what’s legal.”
|
| Potential Civic Engagement |
Have students examine voting registration requirements in your community and/or state. Students brainstorm and share-out ways to get involved in this election, even if they’re not old enough to vote (example: get out the vote drives, applying to be poll workers). Students could begin a campaign advocating for the voting age to be lowered to 17. |
Lesson Narrative
E Pluribus Unum: “Out of many, one”, has been the motto of the United States since 1782. Americans are a diverse people, made up of different genders, races, socioeconomic classes and beliefs. The United States has struggled at various times to live up to its national motto along with America’s stated belief that all men are created equal. One of the defining struggles of American history has been over suffrage. Indigenous people, women, young people and African Americans have all fought for the right to vote. This curriculum chapter will examine the struggle faced by African Americans in the Jim Crow era and beyond for the right to vote.
The first group of enslaved Africans landed on the shores of the United States in 1619. The arrival of enslaved Africans placed the United States on a path towards civil war. After the Civil War ended in 1865, nearly four million formerly enslaved people found themselves emancipated thanks to the 13th Amendment. For 12 years, the country would undergo a period called Reconstruction. During this period the Constitution was amended twice more with the addition of the 14th and 15th Amendments. The 15th Amendment granted Black men the right of suffrage and transformed the former Confederacy. Nearly 2000 Black men held an elected office across the federal, state and local level. According to historian Eric Foner, South Carolina was the only state to have a Black majority in its legislature during Reconstruction and also saw two Black lieutenant governors during this period.
Sadly, Reconstruction was cut short and ended after just only 12 years in 1877 after a contested presidential election. Famed attorney and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson called the historical era that was ushered into existence after the collapse of Reconstruction as “Deconstruction”. That’s because the political, social and economic advances gained by freed men and women were decimated after the return of white political rule to the South. The Jim Crow era brought about a strict regime of racial apartheid, loss of political rights and racial terrorism across the former Confederacy. Southern states passed laws and revised their state constitutions in order to disenfranchise Black voters. New restrictions like the grandfather clause, poll taxes, white primaries and literacy tests made registering to vote almost impossible across the South.
These restrictive and overtly racist voting policies led to almost complete disenfranchisement of Black voters across the South. For example, in some counties in Alabama there was not a single Black citizen registered to vote. Attempts to register to vote were ultimately met with failure as white county registrars carried out nearly impossible to pass literacy tests. In some cases, if a Black citizen was able to register to vote their full name and address were published in the local newspaper for weeks at a time. This often led to acts of violence carried out against them or loss of employment.
The curriculum presented in this chapter uses primary documents to shed light on the struggle faced by Black citizens to register to vote as well as their efforts to fight against this racial oppression. The goal of this curriculum on the fight for Black voting rights is to teach through Black history rather than about Black history. Primary documents are an excellent tool to achieve that objective.
Overview and Description of the Essential Question
In What Ways Have States Limited the Right to Vote?
- Students will read and analyze an Alabama literacy test, legal affidavits of Black citizens in Georgia who attempted to register to vote, and a field report from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Selma, Alabama.
- Time needed: One-two 87 minute class periods.
Staging the Question
Discuss with students the significance of voting in the United States. Ask students what groups of Americans have faced difficulties in gaining suffrage rights throughout American history. Review with students the struggle African Americans have encountered in order to vote in the United States. Ask students about the barriers that states erected to prevent Black suffrage.
Question 1, Formative Task 1, Featured Sources
Students will read and analyze an Alabama literacy test from the 1960s. Students will answer guiding questions that are found on the primary document. Alabama literacy test.
- What person in Alabama was probably given section 20 of the state constitution?
Answer: A white applicant - Why was this person given this section of the constitution?
Answer: To make it easier for the white applicant with limited literacy skills to satisfy the requirements of the literacy test. - What person in Alabama was probably given section 260 of the state constitution?
Answer: A Black applicant. - Why was this person given this section of the constitution?
Answer: To make it difficult for the Black applicant to satisfy the requirements of the literacy test.
Question 2, Formative Task 2, Featured Sources
Students will read and analyze legal affidavits from two Black citizens in Lee County Georgia who attempted to register to vote. The affidavits were taken by a SNCC volunteer. Students will answer guiding questions found on the primary document.
Primary Document-Legal Affidavits from Black citizens in Lee County Georgia taken by representatives of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Fact sheet, Alabama events Jan 17 – Feb 4, 1965 [https://www.crmvet.org/docs/63 sncc ga affidavits-lr.pdf]
- What difficulty did these applicants face when attempting to register to vote in Lee County Alabama?
Answer: The Black applicants both faced a situation where the county registrar was available to register citizens to vote. This was most likely an intentional act done to dissuade Black citizens from registering to vote. - Describe the likely political effects on Black voters in Georgia and other states in the South that used similar tactics like these in the Jim Crow era.
Answer: These state actions resulted in extremely low Black voter registration across the South and a loss of Black political power.
Question 3, Formative Task 3, Featured Sources
Students will read and analyze excerpts from a Field Report by SNCC summarizing events that transpired during January and February of 1965 related to the Selma Campaign. Fact sheet, Alabama events Jan 17 – Feb 4, 1965 [https://www.crmvet.org/docs/6502 sncc ala factsheet.pdf]
- What type of nonviolent tactics were used in the Selma Campaign to register Black voters?
Answer: Voting rights activists took part in nonviolent marches to the Dallas County Courthouse in order to protest their inability to register to vote. - Based on this document, what difficulties did Black voters face besides literacy tests and unhelpful county registrars in their efforts to become registered voters?
Answer: Activists often faced arrest and physical harm from local law enforcement.
Summative Performance Task
Engage students in a Socratic Seminar on voting in the United States today. Students will take part in a class discussion on various reforms that have been passed in states across the country regarding voting and voter registration.
This culminating activity will require students to activate knowledge from classroom instruction, primary and supplemental documents and the excerpt below from The New Yorker ‘Drawing Lines” by Louis Menand.
“Last year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, legislatures in nineteen states passed thirty-four laws imposing voting restrictions.
In Florida, it is now illegal to offer water to someone standing in line to vote. Georgia is allowing counties to eliminate voting on Sundays. In 2020, Texas limited the number of ballot-drop-off locations to one per county, insuring that Loving County, the home of fifty-seven people, has the same number of drop-off locations as Harris County, which includes Houston and has 4. 7 million people.
Virtually all of these “reforms” will likely make it harder for some people to vote, and thus will depress turnout-which is the not so subtle intention. This is a problem, but it is not the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem is that, as the law stands, even when the system is working the way it’s designed to work and everyone who is eligible to vote does vote, the government we get does not reflect the popular will. Michael Kinsley’s law of scandal applies. The scandal isn’t what’s illegal. The scandal is what’s legal.”
Potential Civic Engagement
- Have students examine voting registration requirements in your community and/or state.
- Students brainstorm and share-out ways to get involved in this election, even if they’re not old enough to vote (example: get out the vote drives, applying to be poll workers).
- Students could begin a campaign advocating for the voting age to be lowered to 17.
Conclusion
This curriculum on Black history examined a very specific chapter in American history that focused on the Black freedom struggle. The goal of this curriculum is to teach through Black history rather than about Black history in order to develop a Black historical consciousness approach to Black history. Professor LaGuerrette King (2020) describes the objective of a Black historical consciousness approach to Black history as the following:
A Black historical consciousness approach to Black history is to develop and learn Black history as its own genre of historical thought that is independent of Western knowledge. Redefining Black history is to explore Black identity through complex and nuanced narratives that attempt to get at the full humanity of Black people. (337)
The use of primary documents that focus on African Americans is an attempt to develop a more critical understanding of the Black freedom struggle. The goal of this curriculum was to have students connect the struggle for voting rights to the present in light of the 2013 Supreme Court ruling that struck down some of the protections afforded to Black citizens under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. My hope is that educators use this curriculum as part of a larger unit that makes connections between the political and social apartheid of the Jim Crow South and the fight for civil rights and the destruction of Jim Crow.
Appendices
Appendix A: Alabama Literacy Test given in the 1960s:
Website link: Alabama literacy test, [https://www.crmvet.org/info/littest.htm]
In Part “A” of the Literacy Test you are given a section of the Alabama Constitution to read aloud. The sections are taken from a big loose-leaf binder. Some are easier than others.
Literacy Test #1:
SECTION 20 of the Alabama state constitution: That no person shall be imprisoned for debt.
Literacy Test #2
SECTION 260 of the Alabama state constitution: The income arising from the sixteenth section trust fund, the surplus revenue fund, until it is called for by the United States government, and the funds enumerated in sections 257 and 258 of this Constitution, together with a special annual tax of thirty cents on each one hundred dollars of taxable property in this state, which the legislature shall levy, shall be applied to the support and maintenance of the public schools, and it shall be the duty of the legislature to increase the public school fund from time to time as the necessity therefor and the condition of the treasury and the resources of the state may justify; provided, that nothing herein contained shall be so construed as to authorize the legislature to levy in any one year a greater rate of state taxation for all purposes, including schools, than sixty-five cents on each one hundred dollars’ worth of taxable property; and provided further, that nothing herein contained shall prevent the legislature from first providing for the payment of the bonded indebtedness of the state and interest thereon out of all the revenue of the state.
Primary Document: Excerpts from a Field Report by SNCC summarizing events that transpired during January and February of 1965 related to the Selma Campaign.
January 18, 1965: 500 march on the Dallas County courthouse led by Dr. King and SNCC chairman John Lewis. They are made to stand all day in the alley, and none are able to take the voter’s test. Later in the day Dr. King is punched and kicked by a white racist in the newly integrated Selma hotel.
January 20: 156 arrested including SNCC chairman, John Lewis, SNCC worker Terry Shaw, Frank Sorraco, Gladys Freeman, Tom Brown-while marching to the courthouse. Sheriff Jim Clark of Dallas County tells SNCC chairman John Lewis: “You are an agitator and that’s the lowest form of humanity.”
January 25: Mrs. Annie Lee Cooper of Selma and SNCC worker Willie McCray are arrested at the courthouse. After a scuffle with Sheriff Clark four lawmen pounce on Mrs.
Cooper and beat her with billy clubs. Sheriff Clark says later: “She’s a niggar woman and hasn’t got a Miss or Mrs. in front of her name!”
On Friday, December 21, 1962, I, Mr. Arthur Lowe, went with John O’Nea/, Field Secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, to the Leesburg Courthouse in order to file my application for registering to vote. We went to the Courthouse at about 4pm .
The registrar, Mr. Sol Yeoman, did not permit me to apply for registration. He said he was too occupied taking in taxes . At the time of my talking to him, Mr. Yeoman was doing nothing except reading a newspaper.
I asked him what day I should come back to register. He said any day after Tuesday next week would be okay. He said Monday he wouldn’t be open; Tuesday he wouldn’t be open because it was Christmas; but any day after that would be alright. Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.
Affidavit from J.L. McGrady
On Friday, January 18, 1963, I along with four others went with John O’Neal of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to apply for status as registered voters in Lee County Georgia.
When we arrived at the County Courthouse at approximately 3:30 PM we were unable to make an application because the Registrar, one Sol Yeoman, had apparently left for the day. A Mrs. Forrester, who shares the same office space, told us that he was gone and the best time to catch him was in the morning.
If Friday is the only day of the week that applications will be accepted, as we have been Jed to believe, then the registrar should at least keep regular office hours.
Because Mr. Yeoman was not in, I was unable to apply for registration. According to Georgia state law, I am, to the best of my knowledge, duly qualified to be a registered voter.
Appendix B: Glossary of Historical Terms
Racial Apartheid:
Systemic racial segregation and discrimination that existed, primarily in the Southern states, from the late 19th century through much of the 20th century, commonly known as the era of “Jim Crow.” During this period, state and local laws enforced racial segregation in various aspects of life, such as education, public facilities, transportation, housing, and voting.
Grandfather Clause:
A legal provision used to exempt certain individuals from the restrictive voting requirements and literacy tests that were often put in place to disenfranchise Black Americans. These clauses allowed individuals to vote if their grandfathers had been eligible voters, effectively creating an exemption from new, racially discriminatory voting laws.
Poll Taxes:
A form of voter suppression utilized by Southern states during the Jim Crow era to reduce and/or eliminate Black suffrage. Voters had to pay a yearly tax to the state in order to vote.
Literacy Tests:
A form of voter suppression utilized by Southern states during the Jim Crow ear to reduce and/or eliminate Black suffrage. In order to register to vote voters had to take an examination that tested their ability to read and write. The tests were nearly impossible to pass and resulted in incredibly low Black voter registration in the South.
White Primaries:
A discriminatory practice used in the United States, primarily in the Southern states during the Jim Crow era (late 19th century to mid-20th century), to prevent Black Americans from participating in primary elections, which were a crucial step in the political process. These primaries were conducted by political parties to select their candidates for general elections.
Socratic Seminar:
A method of structured, collaborative discussion typically used in educational settings, particularly in the field of philosophy and in literature or social studies classes. In a Socratic seminar, participants engage in a thoughtful and open-ended dialogue to explore complex ideas, texts, or issues.
References
King, L. G. (2020). Black history is not American history: Toward a framework of Black historical consciousness. Social Education, 84(6), 335-341.
Additional Resources
Anderson, C. (2018). One Person, No vote: How voter suppression is destroying our democracy. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Branch, T. (2007). At Canaan’s edge: America in the King years. Simon and Schuster.
Foner, E. (2014). Reconstruction: America’s unfinished revolution: 1863-1877. Harper Perennial Publishing.
Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement (n.d.). Alabama voter literacy test (c. 1965). www.crmvet.org/info/Iittest.htm.
Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement (n.d.). Lee County Georgia voting rights affidavits, 1963. https://www.crmvet.org/docs/63_sncc_ga_affidavits-lr.pdf
Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement (n.d.). Fact sheet, Alabama events Jan 17 – Feb 4, 1965. https://www.crmvet.org/docs/6502_sncc_ala_factsheet.pdf
