The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921Various
History
The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921
Various
African Americans -- Periodicals
In the case of _Guinn_ v. _United States_[68] the court held that the
literacy test was legal and not subject to revision but in this clause
of the constitution that part of a section providing for literacy was
closely connected with the so-called grandfather clause that the
United States Supreme Court declared both unconstitutional as it did
in the case also of _Myers_ v. _Anderson_,[69] coming from Annapolis,
Maryland, and in the case of _The United States_ v. _Mosely_, from
Oklahoma.[70] The clause referred to follows:
"No person shall be registered as an elector of this State or be
allowed to vote in any election herein, unless he be able to read
and write any section of the Constitution of the State of
Oklahoma; but no person who was on January 1, 1866, or at any
time prior thereto, entitled to vote under any form of
government, or who at that time resided in some foreign nation,
and no lineal descendant of such person, shall be denied the
right to register and vote because of his inability to read and
write sections of such constitution. Precinct election inspectors
having in charge the registration of electors shall enforce the
provisions of this section at the time of registration, provided
registration be required. Should registration be dispensed with,
the provisions of this section shall be enforced by the precinct
officer when electors apply for ballots to vote."
The court held that this was a standard of voting which on its face
was in substance but a revitalization of conditions which when they
prevailed in the past had been destroyed by the self-operative force
of the Thirteenth Amendment.
EDUCATIONAL PRIVILEGES
These suffrage laws left the Negroes in an untoward situation for the
reason that there was little hope that, with the educational
facilities afforded them, that they would soon be able to meet the
same requirement of literacy as that which might not embarrass the
whites offering themselves as jurors and electors. The States upheld
in their action by the United States Supreme Court, had shifted from
their shoulders the burden of the uplift of the Negro by the ingenious
doctrine that equal accommodations did not mean identical
accommodations and that the spirit and the letter of the law would be
complied with by providing separate accommodations for Negroes. In the
end, however, separate accommodations turned out to be in some cases
no accommodations at all.
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