It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting. This “act to enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution” was signed into law 95 years after the amendment was ratified.
When did poll taxes and literacy taxes become illegal?
On this date in 1962, the House passed the 24th Amendment, outlawing the poll tax as a voting requirement in federal elections, by a vote of 295 to 86. At the time, five states maintained poll taxes which disproportionately affected African-American voters: Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas.
When were poll taxes outlawed?
Not long ago, citizens in some states had to pay a fee to vote in a national election. This fee was called a poll tax. On January 23, 1964, the United States ratified the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting any poll tax in elections for federal officials.
Who took literacy tests?
Literacy tests have been administered by various governments to immigrants. In the United States, between the 1850s and 1960s, literacy tests were administered to prospective voters, and this had the effect of disenfranchising African Americans and others with diminished access to education.
What eliminated literacy tests in the 1960’s?
In part to curtail the use of literacy tests, Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
When was the Alabama voter’s literacy test created?
In the mid-1960s, a professor of law at Duke University, William W. Van Alstyne, conducted an experiment in which he submitted four questions found on the Alabama voter’s literacy test to “all professors currently teaching constitutional law in American law schools.”
Why was there a literacy test for black voters?
Even after the Civil Rights Movement afforded them the right to vote, black voters still faced barriers. Southern states especially employed the use of a voting literacy test to dissuade black people from registering.
How did Beulah Toney become a registered voter?
Beulah Toney, an Alabama woman, became a registered voter before the Voting Rights Act was passed. “You could only register one day of the month. I had to be able to read the Constitution of the United States and repeat the Preamble to register to vote,” Toney said. “There was a lady, she and I were the same age and she was white.
When was the literacy test abolished in the United States?
Five years later, in 1970, Congress abolished literacy tests and discriminatory voting practices nationwide, and as a result, the number of registered Black American voters increased dramatically.
