Jim Crow and Segregation: Voting

Suffrage is the right to vote. in public, political elections.

Think of it like this: ​It basically means that you are exercising your power to end suffering in your community.

​Imagine that you are finally old enough to vote in your first election. But, do you have enough money to vote?

During the Jim Crow Era, citizens in Southern states had to pay a fee to vote in a national election. This fee was called a poll tax.

It took until January 23, 1964 to change it when the United States ratified the 24th Amendment to the Constitution.

​Even if you could afford to pay your poll taxes, if you were a minority in the South, you had to take a test to prove you should be able to vote.

​The tests were designed to be so difficult that even people who wrote the tests weren't sure what the right answers were.

​By making them impossible to pass, Southern states could deny people the right to vote.

​The Grandfather Clause was a legal loophole passed by seven Southern states during Reconstruction to deny suffrage to African Americans. It meant that, if you had the right to vote prior to 1867, or were the descendant of such a person, you would be exempt from educational, property, or tax requirements for voting.

​This helped deny voting rights to 70-80% of African American communities in these states.