Black Votes Matter
| Publication year | 2020 |
| Author | By Justice Eileen C. Moore |
By Justice Eileen C. Moore
The Honorable Eileen C. Moore has been an Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division Three since 2000. For her book about bias against African Americans, Race Results: Hollywood vs the Supreme Court; Ten Decades of Racial Decision and Film, she received four national awards.
"Yes, yes, Hubert. I want all those other things, buses, restaurants, all of that. But the right to vote with no ifs, ands or buts . . . that's the key. When the Negroes get that, they'll have every politician North and South, East and West kissing their ass, begging for their support." — President Lyndon Johnson to his soon-to-be Vice President Hubert Humphrey from The Soul of America by Jon Meacham
Happenings in the United States were frenzied and chaotic after the Civil War. Besides attending to matters of Reconstruction, the country was engaged in wars with Native Americans, a transcontinental railroad was being built, and record numbers of people were immigrating to the Western Territories. Many of the bills Congress passed to aid the freedmen were vetoed by Lincoln's successor, President Andrew Johnson. Sometimes Congress was able to override those vetoes, but not always. Eventually Johnson was impeached, surviving conviction in the Senate by one vote. Somewhat amazingly, it was amidst such turmoil that the post-Civil War constitutional amendments were written by congressional supporters of recently freed slaves.
The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and was ratified in 1865. The Fourteenth Amendment granted national citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, including former slaves, and was ratified in 1868. The Fifteenth Amendment granted the right to vote to citizens of the United States regardless of their race and was ratified in 1870.
It didn't take long for tricks and schemes to begin robbing the freedmen of their ballot. Starting in the 1890's, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia enacted literacy tests for voter registration and used other methods to prevent African Americans from voting. Besides literacy tests and raw intimidation, trickeries in the ensuing decades included poll taxes, gerrymandering, voter identification, restrictive voter registration periods, good moral character requirements, criminal exclusion laws, and decreased polling places. These tactics were intended to ensure Black voters not impact the important political issues of the day.
Oklahoma used a grandfather clause that permitted all men to vote so long as they or a family member had been eligible to vote in 1867. That, of course, was the year before the Fourteenth Amendment's ratification. In Guinn v. United States (1915) 238 U.S. 347, the high court held Oklahoma's statute violated the Fifteenth Amendment. The year after Guinn, Oklahoma passed another statute, providing that those who voted under the grandfather clause (meaning Whites) remained qualified to vote for life whereas others (Blacks) had to register within a short time period during 1916, or they would be perpetually disenfranchised. In Lane v. Wilson (1939) 307 U.S. 268, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in a case involving a Black man who had been banned from voting and who unsuccessfully sued the state. The Supreme Court held that Oklahoma's 1916 registration window and grandfather clause violated the Fifteenth Amendment.
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Texas used a different tactic to deprive Blacks of their vote. Nixon v. Herndon (1927) 273 U.S. 536, concerned a Black physician in El Paso who was not permitted to vote in the 1924 Texas primary election because Texas had a statute making it illegal for Blacks to vote in a Democratic primary. The Democratic Party claimed it was a private organization not run by the government, so there was no state action involved. The Court said the Fourteenth Amendment was passed with a special intent to...
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