Disenfranchisement Notes

Disenfranchisement

Jim Crow Era Exclusion

1. Disenfranchisement is the deliberate denial of voting rights (both the right to vote and the right to be elected).
   1. In the Jim Crow South, African Americans were systematically excluded from the political process through violence, poll taxes, literacy tests, and legal loopholes, despite protections in the 15th Amendment.
2. After 1876, Southern white elites used violence, intimidation, and election fraud to suppress Black voting rights.
   1. This continued despite protections like the 15th Amendment and the Enforcement Acts.
   2. The Enforcement Acts (1870–1871) were federal laws designed to protect African Americans’ civil and voting rights, particularly against groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
3. Supreme Court rulings weakened federal protections.
   1. United States v. Cruikshank (1876) and U.S. v. Reese (1875) reduced federal power to defend African American voting rights.
   2. These rulings enabled widespread voter suppression across the South.

Methods of Disenfranchisement

1. Apart from violence, several methods ensured the systematic exclusion of Black voters:
   1. Poll taxes: Required citizens to pay a fee to vote, disproportionately affecting African Americans and poor whites.
   2. Literacy tests: Required voters to read and interpret complex legal texts. These were unfairly administered, often failing literate Black applicants while passing illiterate white voters.
   3. Biased registration procedures: White officials delayed, denied, or discarded Black voter applications, using arbitrary rules or demanding excessive documentation.
2. The Grandfather Clause was another method.