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A literacy test assesses a person's literacy skills: their ability to read and write. Literacy tests have been administered by various governments, particularly to immigrants . Between the 1850s [ 1 ] and 1960s, literacy tests were used as an effective tool for disenfranchising African Americans in the Southern United States.
The Immigration Act of 1917 (also known as the Literacy Act or the Burnett Act[ 1 ] and less often as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act) was a United States Act that aimed to restrict immigration by imposing literacy tests on immigrants, creating new categories of inadmissible persons, and barring immigration from the Asia-Pacific zone.
The term "test or device" is defined as literacy tests, educational or knowledge requirements, proof of good moral character, and requirements that a person be vouched for when voting. [123] Before the Act's enactment, these devices were the primary tools used by jurisdictions to prevent racial minorities from voting. [ 124 ]
Guinn v. United States, 238 U.S. 347 (1915), was a United States Supreme Court decision that found certain grandfather clause exemptions to literacy tests for voting rights to be unconstitutional. Though these grandfather clauses were superficially race-neutral, they were designed to protect the voting rights of illiterate white voters while ...
The test was 30 questions and had to be completed in 10 minutes. One wrong answer resulted in failure. We took a 1964 Louisiana literacy test and failed spectacularly [Video]
A proposal to specifically ban literacy tests was also rejected. [21] Some Representatives from the North, where nativism was a major force, wished to preserve restrictions denying the franchise to foreign-born citizens, as did Representatives from the West, where ethnic Chinese people were banned from voting. [22]
Following the Reconstruction era until the culmination of the civil rights movement, Jim Crow laws such as literacy tests, poll taxes, and religious tests were some of the state and local laws used in various parts of the United States to deny immigrants (including legal ones and newly naturalized citizens), non-white citizens, Native Americans ...
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.