Status of the Right to Vote

Nine years ago the Department of Justice prepared a brief history ofprotection of constitutional rights of individuals during the preceding20 years. 1 On the right to vote, this report stated: "In 1932, thequestion as to the right of Negroes to vote involved 12 Southern States2014Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, NorthCarolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia." 2 Apparently, even at that time, Negroes had no difficulty inregistering and voting in the majority of our States.

The accuracy of this conclusion is borne out by the experience ofthe Commission on Civil Rights in the brief span of its operations.Although the Commission has received 382 sworn complaints frompersons alleging that they had been denied the right to vote or to havetheir vote counted by reason of race, color, religion, or national origin,with the exception of three complaints from New York, all such complaints originated from Southern States mentioned in the Departmentof Justice's report. 3 (The complaints from New York involved PuertoRican American citizens who, although literate in Spanish, could notsatisfy the English literacy test of that State.) 4 Nor has other evidence

of racial discrimination in voting in any of the other 37 States come tothe Commission's attention.

In 1960, Negroes constituted 10.5 percent of the total U.S. population201418,871,831 out of 179,323,175 persons. 5 Negro populationthroughout the 50 States and the District of Columbia varied from alow of one-tenth of i percent in both North Dakota and Vermont to ahigh of 53.9 percent in the District of Columbia, with a majority (53 percent) living in the 12 Southern States mentioned above. Thus in 1960,47 percent of all Negro American citizens resided in 38 States whichhad no recent history of discriminatory denials of the right to vote.

In 1932, "In these [12 Southern] States, Negroes were so effectivelydisfranchised, regardless of the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution, that considerably fewer than a hundred thousand were ableto vote in general election [s] and virtually none was permitted to votein the primary election [s]." 6 However this situation had drasticallyaltered by 1952.

The most important change, accomplished through private lawsuits,was the virtual elimination of "white primaries" in ig44. 7 A second

significant change was voluntary State action abolishing the poll taxas a prerequisite for voting: Louisiana in 1934, Florida in 1937, Georgia in 1945, South Carolina in 1951, and Tennessee in I953. 8 Today,only five Southern States2014Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas, andVirginia2014still require payment of poll tax as a prerequisite for voting. 9

By 1947, when the number of voting-age Negroes in the 12 Southern

States was 5,069,805, the number of registered Negroes had risen from100,000 in 1932 to 645,000; 10 by 1952, this number exceeded i million. 11 Today, there are 5,131,042 nonwhites of voting age in these 12States, 12 of whom a total of 1,361,944 are registered to vote. 13

The Commission's investigations and studies since 1957 indicate that

discriminatory disfranchisement no longer exists in all of the 12 Southern States. The Commission used four principal criteria to determinethe presence of discriminatory disfranchisement: (i) sworn complaintsto the Commission; (2) actions instituted by the Department of Justicepursuant to the new civil remedies of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957and 1960; (3) private-party litigation to secure the right to vote; and(4) the lack of any registered Negroes, or minimal Negro registration,in counties where there is a substantial Negro population. The absence of complaints to the Commission, actions by the Department ofJustice, private litigation, or other indications of discrimination, have ledthe Commission to conclude that, with the possible exception of adeterrent effect of the poll tax2014which does not appear generally to bediscriminatory upon the basis of race or color2014Negroes now appear toencounter no significant racially motivated impediments to voting in4 of the 12 Southern States: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia.

In 1961, then, the problem of denials of the right to vote because ofrace appears to occur in only eight Southern States2014Alabama, Florida,Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, andTennessee2014in which less than 40 percent of the total Negro populationresides. Even in these 8 States, however, with a total of 3,737,242nonwhites of voting age, some 1,014,454 nonwhites are registered tovote. 14 Moreover, discrimination against Negro suffrage does not appear to prevail in every county in any of these States. The Commissionhas found that in Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee, it is limitedto only a few isolated counties. Although arbitrary denial of the rightto vote is more widespread in the remaining five States, there too itexists on something like a "local option" basis.

This is not to say that exclusion of Negroes from the suffrage, however local, is not a matter of national concern. Toleration of even asingle instance of such practice constitutes a partial repudiation of ourfaith in the democratic system. Nevertheless, it seems worthwhile topoint out that the majority of Negro American citizens do not nowsuffer discriminatory denial of their right to vote.

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While the Commission's studies do not allow a definitive statementas to the number of counties where discrimination is present2014or thenumber where it is absent2014they do indicate that there are about 100counties in the 8 Southern States mentioned in which there is reasonto believe that substantial discriminatory disfranchisement of Negroesstill exists. The problems involved in each of these States will be considered below. The Louisiana story will be considered separately, because of the extensive nature of the Commission's investigations andhearing within that State. 15

The Commission's prime source of information is the formal public

hearing where all interested parties can be subpenaed and heard underoath. While this is the most accurate fact-gathering device directlyavailable, the Commission, for various reasons, 16 has been able to holdonly two hearings on the subject of voting; one in Montgomery, Ala., in1958 and 1959, 1T and the second in Louisiana in 1960 and ig6i. 18

An equally fruitful source of information is the study of lawsuits

initiated either by private individuals or the Department of Justice.The Commission has studied all such litigation arising in the past 2years. Cases of this nature have occurred, during this period, in sixof the eight States involved in the following report. 19

Other sources utilized have been Commission staff investigations of

particular complaints, general field studies conducted by the Commission (such as its depth study of the black belt counties), 20 informationfrom the Department of Justice, and voting statistics. 21 With regardto the latter (as is observed in ch. 6), 22 statistics do not in themselvesconclusively prove (or disprove) discrimination, but they may give riseto strong inferences. At least one court has held that the lack of any registered Negroes in a county where they were in a majority,without more, indicated discrimination. 23 Even where some Negroesare registered, if the number is very low compared to the total Negropopulation, an inference of discrimination is difficult to escape. Whileno definite ratio can be set as an invariably reliable indication of discrimination, both in this chapter and in the black belt study, 24 the Commission has used 3 percent of the voting-age population as a reasonablethreshold of suspicion.

ALABAMA

"The Alabama story is not ended," concluded the Commission's 1959 Report 25 after an extended discussion of Negro disfranchisement inthat State. That report was principally concerned with 6 counties,

but continuing appraisals indicate that the denial of Negro suffragehas recently occurred in at least 10 of the State's 67 counties. TheCommission has received a total of 165 sworn complaints alleging denials of the right to vote in Alabama. This number represents 43.2percent of all such complaints received by the Commission in its 4-yearexistence. Alabama is a poll tax State.

The Commission held its first voting hearing in Montgomery, Ala.,in December of 1958, and January of 1959, and heard testimony aboutthe denial of the right to vote in five Alabama counties. 26

Macon County

In 1960 the nonwhite population of Macon County, in east-centralAlabama, was 83.5 percent of the total population, yet only 8.4 percentof the nonwhite voting age population was registered. 27 Since 1957,the Commission...