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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]
Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966), was a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court found that Virginia's poll tax was unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. [1] In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, eleven southern states established poll taxes as part of their disenfranchisement ...
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]
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.
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 ...
Virginia Board of Elections (1966), which ruled poll taxes unconstitutional even for state elections. Federal district courts in Alabama and Texas, respectively, struck down these states' poll taxes less than two months before the Harper ruling was issued. The state of Virginia accommodated the amendment by providing an "escape clause" to the ...
State anti-literacy laws. Between 1740 and 1834 Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, and Virginia all passed anti-literacy laws. [6] South Carolina passed the first law which prohibited teaching slaves to read and write, punishable by a fine of 100 pounds and six months in prison, via an amendment to its 1739 ...
Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641 (1966), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding the power of Congress, pursuant to Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, to enact laws that enforce and interpret provisions of the Constitution. [ 1]