A Brief History of the Voter Suppression of Black Americans Anthony Brown, Joanna Batt, and Esther June Kim
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Social Education 84(4), p. 204–208 ©2020 National Council for the Social Studies Beyond the 19th: A Brief History of the Voter Suppression of Black Americans Anthony Brown, Joanna Batt, and Esther June Kim The history of voting rights for African Americans has been tumultuous. It began to vote in 1920 and far beyond. After the at the moment West Africans became the chattel of white men and women. For the 15th Amendment, Black women would next 200 years, enslaved African Americans had virtually no voting rights. In the continue and intensify their suffrage activ- Dred Scott decision of 1857, the Supreme Court declared that even “free” African ism, digging into the Black “woman ques- Americans did not have the right to be citizens. After this, African Americans went tion.”5 Even after the 19th Amendment through varied periods where the vote was repeatedly given and taken away. What for women’s suffrage was ratified in 1920, anchors this history is what Derrick Bell calls the permanence of racism, which is Black women were subjected to the same the idea that racism remains a stable feature of American society.1 We contend in this restrictions on voting faced by Black men. essay that the story of voting rights of African Americans from Post-Reconstruction These restrictions came in various forms, to the present illustrates how racism has changed over time. In this essay, we focus on all cloaked with guile and creativity to three periods of history: Post-Reconstruction, Civil Rights, and Post-Civil Rights. In execute the same egregious purpose: stop- the sections that follow, we offer a brief history of voting rights for African Americans ping African Americans from voting at all during these periods. We conclude with some recommendations for how teachers costs. For instance, something called the might approach this history. “grandfather clause” was publicly penned as a nod towards allowing the right to vote ‘The Nadir’: The Vote is Given and expanded citizenship via enhanced con- for certain parties. A closer look, however, Taken Away stitutional powers of the federal govern- shows that states adopted this discrimi- The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, ment. But the 15th Amendment did not natory practice in order to give the right often called the “Civil Rights Amend- eradicate racist forces bent on suppres- to vote only to men whose grandfathers ments,” are an example of something we sion of African Americans—both in their had voted before the years 1866 or 1867.6 as educators might preach as progress in right to vote and in their aim to live free This effectively cut out most Black men, a history classroom. But such pedagogy in Jim Crow America.3 The time period for their grandfathers had been enslaved without the whole story can hide great from Reconstruction’s end until the start before the 15th Amendment of 1870 nuance—and insidious white supremacist of the civil rights movement is called and had therefore been unable to vote oppression—when it comes to the rights ‘the Nadir’ for its deliberate removal of in 1866/67. actually fulfilled for African Americans African American voting rights.4 Other flagrant efforts at suppressing from 1877–1954. Although the amend- We often associate the 15th Amend- the exercise of the franchise by African ments’ creation and existence are indeed ment of 1870 with voting rights for African Americans included literacy tests, poll key features of Radical Reconstruction Americans, and the 19th Amendment taxes, “losing” the ballots of Black vot- and post-slavery steps towards equity of of 1920 with voting rights for women. ers, changing polling places right before African Americans, the 15th Amendment However, before examining these periods the vote without informing Black citizens, fell short of securing the right to vote for of suffrage, it’s important to spotlight this setting up polling places in locations Black communities and Black women, crucial fact: no women of color received African Americans could not reach and especially in the South.2 Its creation the right to vote in 1870, and nearly all arresting drivers in advance, or simply speaks volumes about the possibilities of had to fight Jim Crow barriers for a right locking the doors of polling places in Social Education 204 certain communities. In addition, tac- tics of intimidation and racial violence helped to repress the Black vote.7 Throughout all this, Black women continued the fight to obtain the vote for all women. The women of color who splintered off from the women’s suffrage movement after the 15th Amendment excluded them were again marginal- ized in the new century under Jim Crow pressures. Susan B. Anthony, fearing racial repercussions, asked her friend Frederick Douglass not to speak at an 1895 Atlanta suffrage rally; and Alice Paul infamously requested that Ida B. A marcher holds up a National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) sign at the March on Wells-Barnett and her all-Black Alpha Washington, August 28, 1963. The NCNW, founded by Mary McLeod Bethune, was active Suffrage Club of Chicago march at the in registering and educating Black women on the importance of voting. (Photographer: Marion S. Trikosko. Courtesy of the Library of Congress) back of the 1913 D.C. suffrage parade.8 At the same time, Black women regu- larly faced traumatic physical and sexual Americans.11 However, sustained activ- cratic ideals outlined by the 15th amend- violence under local laws that turned a ism and a convergence of interests even- ment. By contrast, nationalist activists blind eye to their rape or murder, while tually helped to galvanize support for viewed the VRA as an opportunity for also penalizing them with incarceration African American voting rights. After African Americans to gain local control just as harshly as Black men for any small on-going public pressure on the Johnson of political power. The problem, how- infraction.9 These tactics may have var- administration, the Voting Rights Act ever, according to Guinier, was that the ied by county, state, or even gender. But (VRA) passed in 1965, calling for the VRA’s attention to representational poli- as governor and then senator James K. end of legal barriers preventing African tics presumed that a Black person elected Vardaman from Mississippi stated in Americans from exercising their consti- to office would automatically pursue or the language of plain racist hatred, the tutional right to vote at the state and work for Black interests. She referred local laws existed with barely “no other local level. In theory, this legislation to the promise of presuming that Black purpose than to eliminate” African would fulfill the promise of the 15th leaders would address Black politics Americans from voting altogether.10 Amendment by extending the vote to as a form of racial tokenism.13 Guinier African American men, as well as enact- affirmed that VRA’s failure was in the The Voting Rights Act: ing the right to suffrage for Black women civil rights movement’s inability to trans- A Pyrrhic Victory? by way of the 19th Amendment. form the structural issues that sustained Despite the racial politics of the South, Legal scholar Lani Guinier described political inequality. Guinier stated, the region of the country in which these the VRA as a landmark piece of legis- restrictions were used most aggres- lation in its ability to directly respond In that vision, the purpose of sively and comprehensively, activists to “impediments to registration and political equal opportunity forged on. While there were a number voting.”12 Guinier further noted that the was to ensure fairness in the of issues that the civil rights movement effectiveness of the legislation was in its competition for favorable policy prioritized through the mid-20th cen- ability to span the ideological continuum outcomes, not just fairness in tury, the central and core issue was suf- of African Americans (between integra- the struggle for a seat at the frage. Concerns over voting rights would tionism and nationalism). The African bargaining table. In addition, come to a head in the mid-1960s when American integrationalist viewed full legislative responsiveness it became clear that voting rights legisla- integration into U.S. society as the key would not be secured merely by tion was not a priority of the Kennedy pathway to equality, whereas the Black election day ratification of black or Johnson administrations. Ryan nationalist viewed separation and self- representatives.14 Crowley’s detailed analysis of the phone sufficiency as the keys to social change. transcripts between President Lyndon The legislation’s appeal rested on its In the decades following, the mass B. Johnson and Dr. Martin Luther promise of changing African Americans’ incarceration of Black men would have King, Jr., manifest the tensions around access to power. Integrationists saw the a significant impact on persistent disen- prioritizing voting rights for African VRA as America’s living up to the demo- franchisement.15 September 2020 205 Voter Suppression: has threatened, in the words of Justice “The online master’s “Post-racial” Jim Crow Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “the precious Policies and laws have not adequately right to vote.”18 While both parties are program in history was nor effectively addressed the issues of guilty of employing this technique to truly life changing.” African American suffrage. Despite produce electoral outcomes that are passage of the 15th and the 19th more favorable to their own party, the Amendments, in addition to the VRA, 2010 census offered the Republican current challenges attest to the need Party, which controlled more states at for protecting the right to vote and the time, the means to redraw congres- its access from an intersectional lens.