The Jim Crow era from 1880 into the 1960s was characterized by rigid, fiercely-enforced racial segregation in the South and elsewhere. It was also characterized by the systematic denial of voting rights to nonwhite Americans — particularly Blacks
Ever since 2000, we have seen increasing efforts by the Republican Party to rig elections in their favor through voter-suppression and gerrymandering against Democratic Party constituencies, particularly nonwhites. Since 2016, voter-suppression has become a key strategy of "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) politicians to maintain and expand their electoral power at the local, state, and federal levels.
There are both similarities and differences between the denial of voting rights in the Jim Crow era and MAGA voter suppression in today. Differences in both purpose and methods.
The essential purpose of the Jim Crow system was to force people of color into a subservient lower caste — an American version serfdom. A system where, as Chief Justice Taney noted: "Negroes are so far inferior that they have no rights which the white man is bound to respect." A system designed to impose on nonwhites conditions of economic exploitation, permanent social inferiority, and complete denial of any shred of political power.
Today, the goal of those who finance and control the MAGA political movement is to increase their individual and corporate wealth while expanding their political power. Many of them also wish to redress what they see as a society unfairly tilted against whites. And for some, their ultimate aim is to return America to the great era of Jim Crow white-supremacy and nonwhite subservience.
In the Jim Crow era, denial of voting rights ensured that segregationist Democrats ("Dixiecrats") won every election. Today, MAGA voter suppression and gerrymandering are designed to make sure that the Republican Party wins enough elections to maintain their political dominance and control of government.
Suppressing Voting Rights: Jim Crow Era
Jim Crow segregation was enforced through social pressure and ostracism, economic retaliation coordinated by the White Citizens Councils, mob violence, and violent terrorism by the Ku Klux Klan. After the Supreme Court's "Separate but Equal" decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, racial segregation was also mandated by law and enforced by cops, courts, and jails.
But even in the Jim Crow era, the suppression of voting rights was constrained by the 15th Amendment: "The right of citizens of to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." To circumvent that Constitutional protection, Dixiecrat politicians established a complex system of laws, rules, policies, customs, and subterfuges, to prevent nonwhites from voting. A system that state and local judges (all of whom were white) could pretend did not violate the 15th Amendment.
The Literacy Test is the first thing that comes to mind when people think about voting rights in the Jim Crow era. But the term "literacy test" has both a specific and a general meaning. The actual written/verbal literacy tests were used as sham pretexts to prevent nonwhites from registering to vote. But the term "literacy test" can also refer to the entire complex denial-of-voting-rights system of which that test was just one component.
The specific details of the literacy test system varied widely by state, county, and year, but they fall into four general categories:
For generations, the Jim Crow literacy-test system effectively denied the vote to nonwhite Americans. In heavily Black counties, African American registration ranged from zero to 10% of those legally eligible, while white registration ranged from 80% to 120%. White registration could be more than 100% because when white voters died or moved out of the area their names were kept on the voting list. Oddly enough, many of them (even the dead ones), somehow managed to cast votes for the Dixiecrat incumbent every election day. This was commonly referred to as the "tombstone vote" and was considered to be a miracle of Jim Crow democracy.
Suppressing Voting Rights: MAGA Era
MAGA activists and Republican officials also use a complex interlocking system that disproportionately impacts Democratic-leaning constituencies — nonwhite, senior, student, poor, disabled, and urban. As with the literacy test system, the specific details vary widely by state, county, and year but they too can be categorized:
Supreme Court Rulings
Long ago, SCOTUS sanctioned slavery with the Dredd Scott decision and later established the legal foundation of the racist Jim Crow era with Plessy v. Ferguson. To its credit, however, the Warren-led court upheld the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act by an 8-1 vote in 1966.
In our current era, though, the highly partisan, Republican-dominated court led by Chief Justice Roberts has steadily dismantled the Voting Rights Act with rulings in cases such as Shelby County v. Holder (2013) and Rucho v. Common Cause (2021). In Rucho they ruled that while gerrymandering on the basis of race remains illegal, gerrymandering for partisan gain is permitted — a ruling that completely ignores the reality that in our racially-polarized elections gerrymandering on the basis of party is effectively gerrymandering on the basis of race.
Now before the court in this session is Louisiana v. Callais which some observers believe the Roberts court intends to use as a pretext for overturning the entire Voting Rights Act. A ruling that would obliterate decades of voting-rights decisions at all judicial levels (just like they did when they overturned Roe v. Wade).
The Right to Vote: Two Views
At root are two antagonistic views of voting rights. In essence, opposite views on who has a right to a share of political power.
The Jim Crow/MAGA view is that the right to vote is a privilege bestowed upon the deserving. A privilege that those who hold power and authority can deny based on factors of their choosing.
The Progressive view is that voting is a basic human right because those subject to laws and taxes have an inalienable right to vote for those who make and enforce those laws and taxes. Hence the old slogan:
One Person - One Vote
Copyright © Bruce Hartford
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