African American Voting Before Freedom Summer

Reconstruction ensured that voting rights were available for all natural born male citizens in the United States. Progressive legislation at the time ensured that African Americans were elected to county, state, and federal offices. However, the end of reconstruction brought the end of one of the most progressive eras of the late 19th century. During the mid-20th century, voting rights were limited by many southern states ensuring that many African Americans were unable to vote. Below are a selection of pages from a booklet entitled The Negro Voter in the South, which outlines some of the fiscal, legal, and social issues surrounding voting in the South. 

Well before Freedom Summer, a movement that pushed for voter registration in Mississippi specifically, African American voter registration was heavily restricted in the South. In 1957, Margaret Price published this booklet, outlining the variety of factors that pitted African Americans against their constitutional rights, making it nearly impossible for Black Americans to vote. This is not, however, to indicate that African American registration was not on the rise in the late 1950s, but rather to illustrate that there was already a plethora of other issues that made voting difficult.

Price addresses some of the legal issues surrounding the registration of African Americans, including literacy tests and constitutional interpretation tests, both of which were coated in confusing and vague language. These were preceded by the poll-tax, which disenfranchised individuals from low-income communities.

In Alabama, Price notes, the poll-tax was so egregious, that many times both African Americans and poor white communities alike were unable to vote. The cumulative poll-tax was able to disenfranchise voters from the age of 21 onwards. However, the literacy tests were the more formidable enemy for the Black American. Price also outlines a system of oppression rooted in socioeconomic factors that limited African American voter registration. In Alabama, the registrar would wait until all white citizens were registered, and then resign for the day. 

In other states, the voter registrars had much more latitude to conduct business as they pleased. Price goes in to provide empirical evidence to detail how few African Americans were registered at the time. In one county, where African Americans made up 18% of the population, and 333 African Americans were of voting age, only 1 was registered. Price’s book shows the systemic oppression of African Americans in a way that not many texts do: by providing evidence from every social domain.

States, up until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, found ways to circumvent the constitution to limit the vote of African Americans. Each act of voter oppression, literacy tests, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses, only served to strengthen the resolve of the African American voters who sought to maintain the rights that the constitution granted them. If nothing else, the incredibly few amount of African American voters pre-1960 goes to show the tenacity of these individuals. These factors, however insurmountable, did not stop a select few Black Americans from pursuing their right to vote. Unfortunatly, there was still much work to be done before full enfranchisment would be granted, and the emperical evidence provided by this booklet provides a glimpse into the situations that Black Americans had to face. Before Freedom Summer the right to vote felt more like a privledge, and the work done to make it a full right should not be ignored. 

Works Cited: 

Maloney, Christopher. "Voting Rights Act of 1965 in Alabama." encyclopediaofalabama.org, Encyclopedia of Alabama, 2 July 2020, https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/voting-rights-act-of-1965-in-alabama/

"Voting Rights for African Americans." loc.gov, Library of Congress, n.d. https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/elections/right-to-vote/voting-rights-for-african-americans/.