The court ruled, despite this crude and brazen denial of his right to vote, that the 15th amendment “ does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one”.Īs states then began fully implementing Jim Crow legislation to disfranchise African Americans, the court, in the Williams v Mississippi (1898) decision, looked at the poll tax and the literacy test and ruled that those chokepoints to the ballot box – which had already removed 90% of registered Black voters in Mississippi from the rolls – did not violate the 15th amendment. He tried to pay his poll tax, which was required to vote, but the tax collector refused to accept the payment and the registrars would not allow him to cast a ballot without payment. In 1876, United States v Reese et al dealt with a Black man who was trapped in a malicious catch-22 that prevented him from voting. The 1874 Minor v Happersett ruling asserted that the right to vote was not part and parcel of American citizenship. Focusing on voting rights gives some indication of how pernicious the decisions were. In a series of decisions in the late 19th and early to mid-20th centuries, however, the supreme court systematically dismantled those protections, as well as others crafted to support African Americans’ citizenship rights and defend against white domestic terrorism waged by the Ku Klux Klan and similar organizations. After the civil war, Congress passed the 1867 Reconstruction Act, which provided that Black men had the right to vote, and then Congress followed that with the 15th amendment, which banned states from using race, color or previous conditions of servitude to undermine the right to vote.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |