Tactics Used to Disenfranchise African Americans

• Poll Taxes

  • Origin: Poll taxes trace back to the late 19th century and were designed to prevent poor citizens, especially African Americans, from voting.
• Poll Taxes

  • Impact: Many African Americans, reeling under economic hardship, found it difficult to afford this tax, thus losing their voting rights.
• Poll Taxes

  • Supplementary Measures: Some states also imposed cumulative poll taxes, requiring citizens to pay all past due poll taxes before regaining the right to vote.
• Literacy Tests

  • Purpose: Ostensibly introduced to ensure voters were literate, these tests were notoriously complex and subjective, specifically tailored to disenfranchise African Americans.
• Literacy Tests

  • Nature of Tests: Questions ranged from understanding complex passages to explaining detailed aspects of the American constitution.
• Literacy Tests

  • Administration Bias: Even literate African Americans found it challenging as white officials often manipulated results.
• Grandfather Clauses

  • Definition: Laws allowing individuals to bypass literacy tests and poll taxes if their ancestors (like grandfathers) had voted before 1867.
• Grandfather Clauses

  • Consequence: Since most African Americans had ancestors who were enslaved and couldn’t vote before 1867, this clause effectively curtailed their voting rights.
• Violence and Intimidation

  • Scope: Beyond legal tactics, direct threats and violence played a significant role.
• Violence and Intimidation

  • Ku Klux Klan: This white supremacist group was infamous for employing terror tactics, including lynchings, to dissuade African Americans from voting.
• Violence and Intimidation

  • Economic Repercussions: Threats of job loss or eviction were other subtler means of intimidation.
• Gerrymandering

  • Mechanism: Redrawing electoral boundaries ensured a majority of white voters in most districts, reducing the political influence of African American communities.
• Gerrymandering

  • Impact: Even in areas with significant African American populations, their voting power was diluted, making it hard to influence policy or elect representatives of their choice.
• Property Ownership Requirements

  • Origins: Rooted in the belief that property owners had a larger stake in societal outcomes.
• Property Ownership Requirements

  • Impact: Given the economic disparities, many African Americans couldn’t meet this criterion, resulting in disenfranchisement.