History of Voting Rights for African Americans 

February 28, 2005

By Andrew Kirshenbaum
FairVote Right to Vote Initiative

Black Voting Rights Before 1800

Contrary to popular belief, the right of people of color to vote did not begin with the passage of the 15th amendment. Even though the right to vote was regulated to white male property owners, prior to the ratification of the U.S. Constitutions, many state Constitutions included provisions allowing for free African-Americans to vote. State Constitutions protecting voting rights for blacks included Delaware (1776), Maryland (1776), Pennsylvania (1776), Massachusetts (1780) and New Hampshire (1784) and New York (1777).

However, by the end of the first half of the nineteenth century, any progress politically or socially that African-Americans had made was abruptly halted and in many cases regressed. State legislature freely passed laws that restricted or rescinded many of the rights that African-American once were granted. For example in 1801 Maryland and in 1835, North Carolina reversed course and restricted voting rights to white men only. Such voting restrictions continued through the rest of the 19th century and well into the 20th century.   The Nineteenth Century As a demonstration of just how fragile the right to vote remains in the U.S., even after the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation (1863), the 13th   Amendment (1865) and 14th  Amendment (1856), and the 15th Amendment (1870), which gave all males of color the right to vote, many states instituted legislation that prevented African Americans from expressing their right to vote. Such state authority, underscores the vulnerability of the right to vote in the U.S. Even today, states continue to individually set state electoral policies and procedures, including, some cases, who is eligible and who is not eligible to vote. Despite, the difficulties that many African-Americans faced during the Reconstruction era, some were elected to public office. Between 1870 and 1900, African Americans held a number of state and national political offices. In all, seventeen were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and two to the U.S. Senate. Many held state office serving as governors, judges and Secretaries of state and sheriffs. 

Reconstruction and Its Long Shadow 

In fact, the first African-American Senator, Hiram R. Revels, was elected to represent Mississippi in 1870. Ironically, Revels was elected to fill the position vacated by Jefferson Davis, who had stepped down ten years earlier to act as the President of the Confederacy. Between 1870 and 1900, many African Americans held political office. In all, 17 were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Many held state office serving as governors, judges and Secretaries of state. During Revels' short tenure as a senator, he introduced several bills, presented a number of petitions, and served on the Committee on the District of Columbia and the Committee on Education. He addressed the Senate on topics such as the readmission of Georgia, the construction of levees in Mississippi and the integration of public schools in the District of Columbia.

Yet, to put his win into perspective: recently elected Barak Obama (D-IL) is only the 5th African-American to be elected to the Senate in its more than 200 year history. This is a direct result of the struggles and voting restrictions that African Americans faced immediately following the passage of the 15th amendment through most of the 19th and 20th century

During the Reconstruction era, states, especially those in the South passed laws to restrict and limit the ability of African Americans to cast a ballot. Such policies included the use literacy tests, poll taxes and Grandfather clauses. State legislatures redrew district lines to prevent the possibility of African Americans constituting an electoral majority, they rewrote state constitutions to include prohibitive measures regarding where an African American could be and where he couldn���t be. Political parties established white only primaries. Collectively, these laws severely limited the ability of many people of color to vote. As a result, by the turn of the century, African Americans were effectively shut out of the political process. Even though African Americans made up as much as 80% of the voting population in some districts, very few held political office anywhere in the country especially in the South. For example, by the middle of the twentieth century in Selma, Alabama voting rolls were 99 percent white and only 1 percent African American even though blacks outnumbered whites in that city. In Birmingham of the cities 18,000 blacks only 30 were eligible to vote. The disenfranchisement of African Americans could be felt in the women���s suffrage movement and in every presidential campaign. On March 3, 1913, as 5,000 women prepared to parade through President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration, demanding the right to vote, Ida B. Wells, a black journalist and civil rights activist did was instructed not to participate. Leaders of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), worried about what image there movement would get if an African American participated insisted she not march with the Illinois delegation. In fact, certain Southern women even threatened to pull out if a black woman marched alongside whites. 

While every presidential campaign was shaped in part by views regarding African American disenfranchisement and candidates had to be mindful of what they said, Presidential hopeful Harry Truman particularly incited Southern whites. During the Democratic National Convention, when Truman placed strong civil rights language in the national Democratic platform, southern delegates walked out. As a result, Southern Democrats then formed the Dixiecrat Party and ran South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond as their candidate for President. 

Civil Rights Movement 

Voting rights took a backseat to the national political arena during the 1940���s until the early part of the 1950���s when the Civil Rights Movement started. By this period, the frustration of a second-class life was enough to spur the movement for voting rights that would ultimately lead to the passage of more constitutional amendments protecting voting rights and the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

In 1962, Fannie Lou Hammer became a leading voting rights activist when she joined others to register thousands. She, like many, risked brutal beatings and constant harassment when trying to raise money for the movement and register voters. She made history when she helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, to challenge white domination of the Mississippi Democratic Party. In 1964, the MDFP challenged the all-white Mississippi delegation at the Democratic Convention with Ms. Hamer leading the challenge. This made national headlines and had the effect of reminding the nation that millions of citizens were denied the basic rights of citizenship. In that year, white adults in Mississippi were ten times more likely to be registered than African American adults.

Organizations like the SNCC (Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee), the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) and the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) were instrumental in bringing the plight of disenfranchisement to the nation and the world. Most notably in 1964, SNCC led the organization of Freedom Summer, a two-month journey that brought hundreds of college-age students from across the country into the South to register voters. These men and women followed in the footsteps of thousands of others who had tried to register Southern African-Americans. This summer journey was important in providing the national news coverage that helped lead to the adoption of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.    

In 1964, the 24th Amendment was added to the Constitution, abolishing the poll tax. Significantly, on five previous occasions the House passed a ban on the poll tax but Senate Democrats had killed the bills each time. As early as 1949 (as part of Truman���s proposed civil rights package), Democratic Sen. Spessard Holland (FL) introduced a constitutional amendment to end poll taxes, but it was 1962 before it was approved by the Senate. Significantly, 91 percent of the Republicans in Congress voted to end the poll tax but only 71 percent of the Democrats did so; and in the Senate, of the 16 Senators who opposed the 24th Amendment, 15 were Democrats. It is important to note that the 24th Amendment banned poll taxes only for federal elections. It was not until 1966, the US Supreme Court struck down poll taxes for all elections, including local and State. 

In 1964, Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson picked up the civil rights bill introduced by President Kennedy. However, even though Democrats held almost two-thirds of the seats in Congress at that time, Johnson could not garner sufficient votes from within his own party to pass the bill. Johnson therefore worked with Republicans to achieve the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, followed by the 1965 Voting Rights Act. When it was finally approved under Johnson, of the 18 Senators who opposed the Voting Rights Act, 17 were Democrats. In fact, 97 percent of Republican Senators voted for the Act.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act banned literacy tests and authorized the federal government to oversee voter registration and elections in counties that had used voter eligibility tests. Within a year, 450,000 new southern blacks successfully registered to vote; [143] and voter registration of African-Americans in Mississippi rose from only 5 percent in 1960 to 60 percent by 1968.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act opened opportunities for African Americans that they had not enjoyed since Republicans had been in power a century before; the laws and policies long enforced by southern Democratic legislatures had finally come to an end. As a result, the number of blacks serving in federal and State legislatures rose from 2 in 1965 to 160 in 1990.

Voting Rights Today: 

The fight to give racial minorities the right to vote in the U.S. has been long and hard. Even though the Constitution prevents the active discrimination of minority voters, many continue to experience hardship and discrimination when casting a ballot. Reports from around the country indicate that attempts to disenfranchise voters are heightened in areas with a heavy minority concentration. In the week leading up to an election, many minority districts are plastered with fliers telling voters the wrong day to vote or reminding them to pay all outstanding parking tickets or child support before voting. Such demands have nothing to do with whether or not a voter can cast a ballot. Racial minorities are also more likely to be questioned by pollwatchers. In fact, in many cities political parties will only send pollwatchers and poll challengers to minority districts, hoping that such actions will dissuade voters from voting.

Moreover, because there is a significantly higher percentage of the racial minority population behind bars than the white population, and since many states disenfranchise all felons and some ex-felons, racial minorities are disproportionately disenfranchised.

Racism and discrimination still exist today. Only by continuing to educate voters on their rights will such targeted discrimination be stopped. Moreover, it is essential the we once and for all protect the right to vote in the U.S. Constitution. It is time to finally add an amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifying that every U.S citizen has an affirmative right to vote.   

For more information check out:
The Voting Rights Act Section by Section
The Department of Justice history of the Voting Rights Act
Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights