Jim Crow Policies

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Voter Suppression under Jim Crow’s Policies
Voter suppression involves influencing an election’s outcome by primarily discouraging or even preventing various groups of individuals from voting. Its main aim is to reduce and avoid quite some voters who may want to vote against a proposition or candidate. In the late nineteenth century and early 20th century, Southern states in the United States promoted segregation under the Jim Crow policies (Blackmon 125). Among them was voter restriction policy, which aimed at suppressing the poor and different racial voters considered as part of the minority. Moreover, the state governments played a vital role in promoting the voting restriction policy.
During the period of segregation, the Southern states introduced poll taxes. After all, races were granted voting rights under the Fifteenth Amendment enactment; the states resolved to enact the poll tax laws to restrict voting rights. The laws, therefore, led to the disenfranchisement of the African-American voters, Native Americans, and poor whites. Even though such laws did not specify the exact group of people, “they adversely affected the poor citizens who could not afford to pay the taxes” (May 25). Through such state method, the poor citizens were segregated from voting, hence condoning the voter restriction policy.
Both state and local governments introduced literacy tests as a way of condoning the voter restriction policy. The tests were administered to the prospective voters with the intention of testing their level of literacy before voting.

The Southern states, in particular, employed the tests as part of the process for voter registration. Such tests intended to disenfranchise the racial minorities who wanted to vote (May 30). Since most of them were not literate and could not read and write correctly, the state and local governments used the test as a way of segregating them from taking part in the voting process.
Additionally, there were grandfather clauses, which were also used by the national and local governments to promote voter restriction. States mainly exempted various individuals whose grandfathers participated in the voting process before the occurrence of the Civil War (Blackmon 124). The primary intent of such clauses was to bar illiterate and poor African-Americans who were former slaves together with their descendants from taking part in the voting process. In such a way, “poor and illiterate whites” were not denied the right to vote since their grandfathers had taken part in the voting process (Wormser 35). Even though the clauses were later ruled unconstitutional, they enhanced the voter restriction policy, which the states wanted to use to strengthen segregation. The local, state and national governments, therefore, played various roles in condoning the voter restriction policy under the Jim Crow policies.

Works Cited
Blackmon, Douglas A. Slavery by another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. Icon, 2012, pp. 124-126. Retrieved from https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=2v-BYWrjl9IC&printsec=frontcover&dq=voting+restrictions+during+Jim+Crow&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj9k-bg_dXeAhUBtIsKHdOzCmsQ6AEIRTAF#v=onepage&q&f=falseMay, Gary. Bending toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy. Duke University Press, 2015, pp. 23-26.
Wormser, Richard. The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2014, pp. 24-45.