Black Voting Rights in the United States

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88–352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964) is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, and racial segregation in schools, employment, and public accommodations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

Blacks in America were given the right to vote only 56 years ago!! That’s not completely accurate. The 15th Amendment was passed by Congress in 1870. It states voting rights could not be “denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude”.

However, Black votes were suppressed by threats of intimidation or violence by White supremacist groups from 1870 through the Civil Rights movement. In addition to this strategy, Southern State legislatures used qualifications such as literacy tests, poll taxes and other discriminatory practices.

In states that Black communities consolidated their voting power and began advancing their status and political power, riots soon followed.

I’ll give you two examples. The first is the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898. The Black community was amassing a great deal of political power and status. This created tensions between the Black and White communities. Once again, African Americans were vilified. In a nutshell, the estimated death toll of Blacks killed in this riot/massacre ranged from 25 - 100’s. The bigger outcome of the riot was the passing of the Suffrage Amendment to the North Carolina State Constitution, which virtually eliminated Black voting rights and reinforced segregation until the Civil Right movement.

The second example is the Atlanta riot of 1906 which was caused by job competitions with Blacks and Whites, as well as, politicians stoking White fears. Although, the riot killed 12-25 Blacks, the greater repercussion was the fact that the Georgia State legislature passed a disfranchisement law that reduced the Black electorate from 25% of African Americans to 4%.

I’m sure this is a lot to take in, but there were a number of race riots/massacres between the end of slavery and the Civil Rights movement.

Yes, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a major breakthrough for Blacks in America, but it was a fight that took decades to secure. Based on the history of Blacks struggle for the right to vote in the United States, I will never understand why any Black person that is eligible to vote would not exercise their right.