Voting Rights

SUFFRAGE•The right to vote

POLL TAX• A fee (money) people had to pay in order to

vote in local, state, and national elections.• Ended in 1964 with the 24th Amendment

POLL TAXfor African Americans

Kept from Voting:• Not able to afford

LITERACY TESTS• Testing a citizen’s ability to read and write• Most were actually tests about government• Commonly used in the USA, especially the “Jim

Crow” era South, to keep non-Whites from voting

LITERACY TESTS for African Americans

Kept from voting:• No education –

not literate, not know information

• Local agency scored tests as Failed regardless of performance

GRANDFATHER CLAUSE• It stated that all men or their descendants

who were able to vote BEFORE 1867 did not have to meet the (Poll) tax, educational (Literacy Test), or property ownership requirements for voting.

• This clause let all white males vote while not allowing black men and other men of color to vote.

• It was created to try to get around the 15th Amendment.

GRANDFATHER CLAUSEfor African Americans

Kept from voting:–Grandfathers were slaves–Grandfathers not able to vote even if freed person of color

13th Amendment• Ended slavery in 1865

14th Amendment (1868)• Provided citizenship

rights to those born or naturalized in the USA.

• States could not make laws that take away a person’s rights.

• States must follow the same Due Process that the Federal government does.

• States must protect everyone the same way

EQUAL PROTECTION CLAUSE

• All US citizens are supposed to be protected by the State and Federal governments equally, no matter their race, color, religious beliefs, etc.

• Was supposed to end discrimination of blacks by the government.

15th Amendment (1870)

• Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

• Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

• Designed to allow former slaves (called Freedmen) the right to vote

• During Reconstruction time period in the South many former Confederates and pro-slavery forces tried to stop former slaves from their right to vote

• Also extended the right to vote to new immigrant groups that have come into the USA since the 1870’s

SEGREGATION

• The legal separation of the races• It was most common in the post-Reconstruction

Southern states

“JIM CROW” LAWS• Laws common in

the South after 1880.

• Required all non-Whites to use separate facilities.

• Some of these facilities included schools, water fountains, bathrooms, trains and buses

Some Examples of Jim Crow Laws

“Separate, but Equal”Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

• Homer Plessy, a Creole (7/8 white and 1/8 black-He had a black great grandparent), got on a Whites Only train car and was arrested.

• This was done on purpose

“Separate, but Equal”Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Pt. 2• He was arrested and tried in court.• His lawyers appealed to the Supreme

Court• The Supreme Court ruled against Plessy

and stated the famous phrase “Separate but equal”

• This meant that “Colored” people could be discriminated against as long as the facilities involved were “equal”

• This was a HUGE blow to civil rights for non-Whites in the USA and especially the South

• This decision basically legalized “Jim Crow” laws

Plessey v. Ferguson (con’t)

Does this seem “Equal?”

Does this seem “Equal?”

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954)

Brown v. Board• Linda Brown had to

walk six blocks to catch a bus to take her to a “Blacks only” school a mile away.

• There was a “Whites only” school just seven blocks from her house.

• Her parents sued the district when she was refused enrollment in the “Whites only” school.

Brown v. Board Pt. 2• The case is argued by

Thurgood Marshal. • He would later go on to

become the first African American Supreme Court Justice.

• The case overturned the Plessy decision and the Court ruled the separate was NOT equal.

• This paved the way for all public schools to become integrated (all colors could go there – also known as desegregation)

19th Amendment (1920)• Women win the

right to vote through the efforts of “Suffragettes”

• Suffragettes were women who fought for the right to vote

• The battle for Women’s suffrage was going on at the same time in England and in the US

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (seated)

Sojourner Truth

Many women could vote in Western States but could not vote back East, like these women in New York City

26th Amendment (1971)• 18 year olds are

given the right to vote

• The amendment was created in response to student protests about being drafted into the Army at 18 but not being able to vote for the Congressmen who sent them to war until they were 21.

REGISTER• To sign up with the

government to vote.• You must be 18.• You must be a US

citizen to register.• You can not be in jail

or on parole in NJ.• You must live in the

state, county and town where you are registered.