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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - V. Politics - 22. Political Practices Today - 2. Southern Techniques for Disfranchising the Negroes
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484 An American Dilemma
loophole to white persons who could not read and write. They require the
ownership of 40 acres of land or other property worth $300 to $500.
Educational requirements for voting are found in Mississippi, Alabama,
Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. In
most states they consist of demonstration of ability to read and write a
section of the federal or state constitution to the ‘^satisfaction” of the
registrar j
in Virginia they consist of writing an application for registration.
Relatively seldom is a white man “insulted” by being given the testj yet
many cases have been recorded®® where a Negro “failed” the test when
he mispronounced a single word. Even professors at Tuskegee and other
Negro universities have been disfranchised by failing to pass these tests.
In a few Deep Southern states, not only must a section of the Constitution
be read and written, but it must also be interpreted to the “satisfaction”
of the registrar. Needless to say, the educational attainments of election
registrars are seldom such that they can be fair judges of the meaning of
the state and federal constitutions. This “interpretation” requirement is
now found only in Mississippi and Louisiana.
The legal “character” requirement for voting registration also has
declined in recent years so that it is now found only in Louisiana and
Georgia. Actually it is applied illegally to Negroes in many other places
in the South: Negroes must be vouched for by whites or they must be
known to the registrars in their communities as “good niggers.” In some
cases, a leading “good nigger” may serve as character witness for other
Negroes. In Georgia the character requirement is used not only to dis-
franchise Negroes but also to permit the registration of whites who cannot
meet the property or educational requirements, since it is an alternative
to these other requirements.®^
In addition to these better known legal requirements for voting, there
are several others which are, or have been, employed in one or more
Southern states to disfranchise Negroes. A tricky registration blank must
be filled out: whites will be given assistance, and their errors adjusted or
overlooked 5
Negroes will not be allowed even the most trivial incomplete-
ness or error, and are given no assistance. Certain of the previously dis-
cussed requirements (poll tax payment, education, or property) are waived
for the war veterans, or for the aged in certain states: In practice whites
are informed of such privileges but Negroes who qualify are not expected
to ask for them. Some Southern states withhold the vote from anyone
convicted of a crime: this is overlooked for most of the whites but applied
as rigorously as can be to the Negro.®^
More important than the legal requirements in disfranchising Negroes
in the South are extra-legal fractices. Laws passed by state or local govern-
ments must not conflict with the constitutional provision that there be no
discrimination because of race, color or creed. Activities carried on outside
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