Christina sent me this dark little chapter in history.
This week’s Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder overturned Section 4(b) of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which mandated federal oversight of changes in voting procedure in jurisdictions that have a history of using a “test or device” to impede enfranchisement. Here is one example of such a test, used in Louisiana in 1964.
After the end of the Civil War, would-be black voters in the South faced an array of disproportionate barriers to enfranchisement. The literacy test—supposedly applicable to both white and black prospective voters who couldn’t prove a certain level of education but in actuality disproportionately administered to black voters—was a classic example of one of these barriers.
The website of the Civil Rights Movement Veterans, which collects materials related to civil rights, hosts a few samples of actual literacy tests used in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi during the 1950s and 1960s.
Go have a look at the test. I may try and print it up and take the test timed. I’ve read the first page, but I’ll try to see if I can pass the test cold when I get some time.
It’s not impossible. You just have to read the directions and follow them.
Maybe the Slate writer is illiterate herself?
Of course it was never about whether or not the test is passable, but rather that it was selectively enforced, which is of course unconstitutional, a point I’m sure they would agree with us on.
And yet, hypocritically, they do not see that selective enforcement of federal law is unconstitutional.
Granted this law is unconstitutional for other reasons as well, but that people can’t see the hypocrisy there is just really grinding my gears.