{UAH} DEMOCRATIC EFFORTS TO LIMIT VOTING RIGHTS FOR BLACKS

Democratic Efforts to Limit Voting Rights for Blacks

During Reconstruction (1865-1877), Republicans passed four federal civil rights bills to protect the rights of African-Americans, the fourth being passed in 1875. [54] It was nearly a century before the next civil rights bill was passed, because in 1876 Democrats regained partial control of Congress and successfully blocked further progress. As Democrats regained control of the legislatures in southern States, they began to repeal State civil rights protections and to abrogate existing federal civil rights laws. As African-American US Rep. John Roy Lynch (MS) noted, “The opposition to civil rights in the South is confined almost exclusively to States under democratic control . . .” [55]

Devious and cunning methods were required to circumvent the explicit voting protections of the 14th and 15th Amendments, and southern Democrats implemented nearly a dozen separate devices to prevent blacks from voting, including:

• Poll taxes
• Literacy tests
• “Grandfather” clauses
• Suppressive election procedures
• Black codes and enforced segregation
• Bizarre gerrymandering
• White-only primaries
• Physical intimidation and violence
• Restrictive eligibility requirements
• Rewriting of State constitutions

1. The poll tax

The poll tax was a fee paid by a voter before he could vote. The fee was high enough that most poor were unable to pay the tax and therefore unable to vote. Although the poll tax affected both whites and blacks, it was disproportionately hard on blacks who were just emerging from slavery, many of whom had not yet established an independent means of living. A poll tax was first proposed in Texas in 1874, right after Democrats reclaimed power from the Republicans, [56] but it was North Carolina in 1876 that became the first State to enact a poll tax, [57] and other southern States quickly followed. [58]

2. Literacy tests

Literacy tests required a voter to demonstrate a certain level of learning proficiency before he could vote. In some cases, the test was 20 pages long for blacks, and those administering the tests were white Democrats who nearly always ruled that blacks were illiterate. In Alabama, the test included questions such as, “Where do presidential electors cast ballots for president?” “Name the rights a person has after he has been indicted by a grand jury.” [59] Democrats required blacks to have an above average education before they could vote but then simultaneously opposed black education and even worked with the Ku Klux Klan to burn down schools attended by blacks. [60] Clearly, they did not intend for blacks to vote.

3. “Grandfather” clauses

“Grandfather” clauses were laws passed by Democratic legislatures allowing an individual to vote if his father or grandfather had been registered to vote prior to the passage of the 15th Amendment. [61] Since voting in the South prior to the 15th Amendment was almost completely by whites, this law ensured that poor and illiterate whites, but not blacks, could vote.

4. Suppressive election procedures

Some election procedures (such as “multiple ballots”) were intentionally made complex and misleading. For example, a Republican voter might be required to cast a ballot in up to eight separate locations – or sometimes to cast a vote for each Republican on the ballot at a separate location – before the ballot would be counted. Democratic officials, however, often failed to inform black voters of this complicated procedure and their ballots were therefore disqualified. [62]

5. Black codes and enforced segregation

Black Codes (later called Jim Crow laws) restricted the freedoms and economic opportunities of blacks. For example, in the four years from 1865-1869, southern Democrats passed “Black Codes” to prohibit blacks from voting, holding office, owning property, entering towns without permission, serving on juries, or racially intermarrying. [63]

National observers at that time concluded that the South was simply trying to institute a new form of slavery through these Black Codes. [64] This tactic was obvious to African-Americans, thus causing black US Rep. Joseph H. Rainey (Republican from SC) to quip: “I can only say that we love freedom more – vastly more – than slavery; consequently we hope to keep clear of the Democrats!” [65]

Southern Democrats went well beyond Black Codes, however, and also imposed forced racial segregation. In 1875, Tennessee became the first State to do so, [66] and by 1890 several other southern States had followed. [67] As a result, schools, hospitals, public transportation, restaurants, etc., became segregated. (Even though the Republican Congress had already passed laws banning segregation, the US Supreme Court struck down those anti-segregation laws in a series of decisions in the 1870s and 1880s. [68])

6. Bizarre gerrymandering

Once the Democrats regained State legislatures at the end of Reconstruction, they began to redraw election lines to make it impossible for Republicans to be elected, thereby preventing blacks from being elected. [69] For example, although many blacks were elected as Republicans in Texas during Reconstruction, when the last African-American left the State House in 1897, none was elected (either as a Republican or a Democrat) for the next 70 years until federal courts ordered a change in the way Texas Democrats drew voting lines. [70] Furthermore, although Republicans had been an overwhelming majority in the State legislature during Reconstruction, after Democrats redrew election lines, for several decades there were never more than two Republicans serving in the House nor one in the Senate. [71] This pattern was typical in other southern States as well.

7. White-only primaries

Another way Democrats could keep blacks from being elected was by enacting Democratic Party policies prohibiting blacks from voting in their primaries. When Texas later codified this policy into State law, the US Supreme Court struck down that Texas law in 1927, [72] but not the party policies. The Democratic Parties in Georgia, [73] Louisiana, [74] Florida, [75] Mississippi, [76] South Carolina, [77] etc., therefore continued their reliance on white-only primaries. Because Democrats solidly controlled every level of government in the South (often called the “solid Democratic South” [78]), this policy had the same effect as a State law and again ensured that no black would be elected. In 1935, the Supreme Court upheld this Democratic policy [79] but then reversed itself and finally struck it down in 1944. [80]

8. Physical intimidation and violence

In 1871, black US Rep. Robert Brown Elliott (Republican from SC) observed that: “the declared purpose [of the Democratic party is] to defeat the ballot with the bullet and other coercive means. . . . The white Republican of the South is also hunted down and murdered or scourged for his opinion’s sake, and during the past two years more than six hundred loyal [Republican] men of both races have perished in my State alone.” [81] Elliott’s term “coercive means” accurately described the lynchings as well as the cross burnings, church burnings, incarceration on trumped-up charges, beatings, rape, murder, etc.

The Ku Klux Klan was a leader in this form of violent intimidation by Democrats. As African-American US Rep. James T. Rapier (Republican from al) explained in 1874, Democrats “were hunting me down as the partridge on the mount, night and day, with their Ku Klux Klan, simply because I was a Republican and refused to bow at the foot of their Baal.” [82]

Of all forms of violent intimidation, lynchings were by far the most effective. Between 1882 and 1964, 4,743 persons were lynched – 3,446 blacks and 1,297 whites. [83] Why were so many more blacks lynched than whites? According to African-American Rep. John R. Lynch (Republican from SC), “More colored than white men are thus persecuted simply because they constitute in larger numbers the opposition to the Democratic Party.” [84]

Republicans often led the effort to pass federal anti-lynching laws, [85] but Democrats successfully blocked every anti-lynching bill. For example, in 1921, Republican Rep. Leonidas Dyer (MO) introduced a federal anti-lynching bill in Congress, but Democrats in the Senate killed it. [86] The NAACP reported on December 17, 1921, that: “since the introduction of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill in Congress on April 11, 1921, there have been 28 persons murdered by lynchings in the United States.” [87] Although some Democrats introduced anti-lynching bills across the decades, their Democratic leaders killed every effort and Congress never did pass an anti-lynching bill. [88]

9. Restrictive eligibility requirements

Election policies designed to limit black voting included requirements that a voter must reside in a state for two years, his county for one year, and his ward or precinct for six months before he could vote. [89] This requirement especially limited the effect of workers seeking employment – often blacks. After the poll tax was abolished, some States, still trying to achieve the same effect, enacted annual registration fees for voters. The lower courts struck down such fees in 1971; [90] in 1972 the Supreme Court struck down the excessive filing fees established by Democratic legislatures; [91] these fees were designed to prevent what the Supreme Court had termed the “less affluent segment of the community” [92] from participating as candidates.

10. Rewriting of State constitutions

As a part of Reconstruction, most southern States had been required to rewrite their State constitutions to add full civil rights protections. [93] However, less than two decades later, many States revised their constitutions to remove those clauses. For example, in 1868 North Carolina had rewritten its constitution to include civil rights, [94] but in 1876 it amended its constitution to exclude most blacks from voting. [95] Over the next two decades, Democrats in Mississippi, [96] South Carolina, [97] Louisiana, [98] Florida, [99] Alabama, [100] and Virginia [101] also altered their constitutions or passed laws to negate many of the rights given to blacks during Reconstruction.

11. Other requirements

Other restrictions used by Democrats to keep blacks from voting included property ownership requirements. For example, in Alabama in 1901, a voter was required to own land or property worth at least $300 before he could vote [102] (today that would equate to more than $6,500. [103]) Some States would withhold voting rights for the “commission” of a crime – not for a serious crime or a felony but rather for violating any of a long list of petty offenses (unemployed blacks or those looking for work were often charged with vagrancy, resulting in a loss of their voting rights). [104]

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