Poll taxes in the United States

Last updated

Receipt for payment of poll tax, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, 1917 (equivalent to $24 in 2023) PollTaxRecieptJefferson1917.JPG
Receipt for payment of poll tax, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, 1917 (equivalent to $24in 2023)
History of poll taxes as a condition to voting in the former Confederate States of America History of poll tax as a condition to voting.gif
History of poll taxes as a condition to voting in the former Confederate States of America

Poll taxes were used in the United States until they were outlawed following the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Poll taxes (taxes of a fixed amount on every liable individual, regardless of their income) had also been a major source of government funding among the colonies and states which went on to form the United States. Poll taxes became a tool of disenfranchisement in the South during Jim Crow, following the end of Reconstruction. This form of disenfranchisement was common until the Voting Rights Act, which is considered one of the most monumental pieces of civil rights legislation ever passed. The Voting Rights Act followed the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibited both Congress and the states from implementing poll taxes, but only for federal elections.

Contents

Description

A poll tax is a tax of a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. Various privileges of citizenship, including voter registration or issuance of driving licenses and resident hunting and fishing licenses, were conditioned on payment of poll taxes to encourage the collection of this tax revenue. In places that instituted a cumulative poll tax, missed poll taxes from prior years must also be paid to receive the restricted privileges. [1] [2] [3]

History

Although often associated with states of the former Confederate States of America, poll taxes were also in place in some northern and western states, including California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. [4] Poll taxes had been a major source of government funding among the colonies which formed the United States. For instance, poll taxes made up from one-third to one-half of the tax revenue of colonial Massachusetts.

Property taxes assumed a larger share of tax revenues as land values rose when population increases encouraged settlement of the American West. [5] Some western states found no need for poll tax requirements; but poll taxes and payment incentives remained in eastern states.

Voter registration

Poll taxes became a tool of disenfranchisement in the South during Jim Crow, following the end of Reconstruction. Payment of a poll tax was a prerequisite to the registration for voting in a number of states until 1965. The tax emerged in some states of the United States in the late nineteenth century as part of the Jim Crow laws. After the right to vote was extended to all races by the enactment of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, a number of states enacted poll tax laws as a device for restricting voting rights. The laws often included a grandfather clause, which allowed any adult male whose father or grandfather had voted in a specific year prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without paying the tax. [6] These laws, along with unfairly implemented literacy tests and extra-legal intimidation, [7] such as by the Ku Klux Klan, achieved the desired effect of disenfranchising Asian-American, Native American voters and poor whites as well, but in particular the poll tax was disproportionately directed at African-American voters.

Proof of payment of a poll tax was a prerequisite to voter registration in Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia (1877), North and South Carolina, Virginia (until 1882 and again from 1902 with its new constitution), [8] [9] and Texas (1902). [10] The Texas poll tax, instituted on people who were eligible to vote in all other respects, was between $1.50 and $1.75 ($62.00 in 2023). This was "a lot of money at the time, and a big barrier to the working classes and poor." [10] Georgia created a cumulative poll tax requirement in 1877: men of any race 21 to 60 years of age had to pay a sum of money for every year from the time they had turned 21, or from the time that the law took effect. [11]

The poll tax requirements applied to whites as well as blacks, and also adversely affected poor citizens. The laws that allowed the poll tax did not specify a certain group of people. [12] This meant that anyone, including white women, could also be discriminated against when they went to vote. One example is in Alabama where white women were discriminated against and then organized to secure their right to vote. One group of women that did this was the Women's Joint Legislative Council of Alabama (WJLC). [12] African American women also organized in groups against being denied voting rights. In 1942, an African American woman named Lottie Polk Gaffney, along with four other women, unsuccessfully sued the South Carolina Cherokee County Registration Board with the help of the NAACP. [13] Gaffney sued for her right to vote after having been stopped from registering to vote two years earlier. As a result of her suing the county the mailman did not deliver her mail for quite some time. [14]

Many states required payment of the tax at a time separate from the election, and then required voters to bring receipts with them to the polls. If they could not locate such receipts, they could not vote. In addition, many states surrounded registration and voting with complex record-keeping requirements. [15] These were particularly difficult for sharecropper and tenant farmers to comply with, as they moved frequently.

The poll tax was sometimes used alone or together with a literacy qualification. In a kind of grandfather clause, North Carolina in 1900 exempted from the poll tax those men entitled to vote as of January 1, 1867. This excluded all blacks, who did not then have suffrage. [16]

Judicial challenge

In 1937, in Breedlove v. Suttles, 302 U.S. 277 (1937), the United States Supreme Court found that a prerequisite that poll taxes be paid for registration to vote was constitutional. The case involved the Georgia poll tax of $1 (equivalent to $21in 2023). Georgia abolished its poll tax in 1945. [17] Florida repealed its poll tax in 1937. [18] : 346 

The 24th Amendment, ratified in 1964, abolished the use of the poll tax (or any other tax) as a pre-condition for voting in federal elections, [19] but made no mention of poll taxes in state elections. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made clarifying remarks which helped to outlaw the practice nationwide, as well as make it enforceable by law.

In the 1966 case of Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, the Supreme Court reversed its decision in Breedlove v. Suttles to also include the imposition of poll taxes in state elections as violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Harper ruling was one of several that relied on the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment rather than the more direct provision of the 24th Amendment. In a two-month period in the spring of 1966, Federal courts declared unconstitutional poll tax laws in the last four states that still had them, starting with Texas on February 9. Decisions followed for Alabama (March 3) and Virginia (March 25). Mississippi's $2.00 poll tax (equivalent to $19in 2023) was the last to fall, declared unconstitutional on April 8, 1966, by a federal panel. [20] Virginia attempted to partially abolish its poll tax by requiring a residence certification, but the Supreme Court rejected the arrangement in 1965 in Harman v. Forssenius .

Poll taxes by state

StateCostImplementationRepeal
Alabama$1.50 ($55.00 in 2023)1901 [21] : 471 1966 [22]
Arkansas$1.00 ($33.91 in 2023)1891 [21] : 471  [Notes 1] 1964 [24]
California$2.00 ($73.00 in 2023)1850 [25] 1914
Connecticut ?16491947
Delaware ?1897 [21] : 471 
Florida$1.00 [26] ($33.91 in 2023)1885 [21] : 471  [Notes 2] 1937 [27]
Georgia$1.00 ($28.61 in 2023)1877 [28] [Notes 3] 1945 [12]
Louisiana$1.00 [30] ($36.62 in 2023)1898 [21] : 471 1934 [31]
Maine$3.00 ($98.00 in 2023)18451973 [32]
Maryland ?1896 [21] : 471 
Massachusetts$3.00 [33] ($60.00 in 2023)1865 [21] : 470 1890 [21] : 470 
Minnesota$1.00 ($24.75 in 2023)1863 ?
Mississippi$2.00 ($68.00 in 2023)1890 [21] : 471 1966 [34]
New Hampshire ? ? ?
North Carolina ?1900 [21] : 471 1920 [12]
Ohio* ? ? ?
Oklahoma$2.00 ($65.00 in 2023)19071986 [35]
Pennsylvania ?1865 [21] : 470 1933 [36]
Rhode Island$1.001865 [21] : 470  ?
South Carolina$1.00 ($36.62 in 2023)1895 [21] : 471 1951 [37]
Tennessee$1.00 ($24.09 in 2023)1870 [21] : 471  [Notes 4] 1953 [12]
Texas$1.50 ($53.00 in 2023) to 1.75 [39] ($62.00 in 2023)1902 [21] : 471 1966 [39]
Vermont$1.00 [40] ($16.33 in 2023)17781982
Virginia$65.00 in 20211902 [21] : 471 ($53.00 in 2023)1966 [41] [42]
Wisconsin ? ? ?

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution</span> 1870 amendment prohibiting denial of voting rights on the basis of race

The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government and each state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It was ratified on February 3, 1870, as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution</span> 1964 amendment prohibiting poll taxes

The Twenty-fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits both Congress and the states from requiring the payment of a poll tax or any other tax to vote in federal elections. The amendment was proposed by Congress to the states on August 27, 1962, and was ratified by the states on January 23, 1964.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suffrage</span> Right to vote in public and political elections

Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums. In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to vote is called active suffrage, as distinct from passive suffrage, which is the right to stand for election. The combination of active and passive suffrage is sometimes called full suffrage.

A grandfather clause, also known as grandfather policy, grandfathering, or being grandfathered in, is a provision in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations while a new rule will apply to all future cases. Those exempt from the new rule are said to have grandfather rights or acquired rights, or to have been grandfathered in. Frequently, the exemption is limited, as it may extend for a set time, or it may be lost under certain circumstances; for example, a grandfathered power plant might be exempt from new, more restrictive pollution laws, but the exception may be revoked and the new rules would apply if the plant were expanded. Often, such a provision is used as a compromise or out of practicality, to allow new rules to be enacted without upsetting a well-established logistical or political situation. This extends the idea of a rule not being retroactively applied.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African Americans in the United States Congress</span>

From the first United States Congress in 1789 through the 116th Congress in 2020, 162 African Americans served in Congress. Meanwhile, the total number of all individuals who have served in Congress over that period is 12,348. Between 1789 and 2020, 152 have served in the House of Representatives, nine have served in the Senate, and one has served in both chambers. Voting members have totaled 156, while six others have served as delegates. Party membership has been 131 Democrats and 31 Republicans. While 13 members founded the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971 during the 92nd Congress, in the 116th Congress (2019-2020), 56 served, with 54 Democrats and two Republicans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voting rights in the United States</span>

Voting rights, specifically enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of different groups, have been a moral and political issue throughout United States history.

Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court with regard to voting rights and, by extension, racial desegregation. It overturned the Texas state law that authorized parties to set their internal rules, including the use of white primaries. The court ruled that it was unconstitutional for the state to delegate its authority over elections to parties in order to allow discrimination to be practiced. This ruling affected all other states where the party used the white primary rule.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alabama Constitution of 1901</span> Principles, institutions and law of political governance in the U.S. state of Alabama

The Constitution of the State of Alabama of 1901 was the basic governing document of the U.S. state of Alabama. Adopted in 1901, it was Alabama's sixth constitution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reconstruction Amendments</span> Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution

The Reconstruction Amendments, or the Civil War Amendments, are the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, adopted between 1865 and 1870. The amendments were a part of the implementation of the Reconstruction of the American South which occurred after the Civil War.

White primaries were primary elections held in the Southern United States in which only white voters were permitted to participate. Statewide white primaries were established by the state Democratic Party units or by state legislatures in South Carolina (1896), Florida (1902), Mississippi and Alabama, Texas (1905), Louisiana and Arkansas (1906), and Georgia (1900). Since winning the Democratic primary in the South at the time almost always meant winning the general election, barring black and other minority voters meant they were in essence disenfranchised. Southern states also passed laws and constitutions with provisions to raise barriers to voter registration, completing disenfranchisement from 1890 to 1908 in all states of the former Confederacy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era</span> Post-civil war voter suppression efforts in the United States

Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era in the United States, especially in the Southern United States, was based on a series of laws, new constitutions, and practices in the South that were deliberately used to prevent black citizens from registering to vote and voting. These measures were enacted by the former Confederate states at the turn of the 20th century. Efforts were also made in Maryland, Kentucky, and Oklahoma. Their actions were designed to thwart the objective of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1870, which prohibited states from depriving voters of their voting rights based on race. The laws were frequently written in ways to be ostensibly non-racial on paper, but were implemented in ways that selectively suppressed black voters apart from other voters.

This timeline highlights milestones in women's suffrage in the United States, particularly the right of women to vote in elections at federal and state levels.

Voter suppression in the United States consists of various legal and illegal efforts to prevent eligible citizens from exercising their right to vote. Such voter suppression efforts vary by state, local government, precinct, and election. Voter suppression has historically been used for racial, economic, gender, age and disability discrimination. After the American Civil War, all African-American men were granted voting rights, but poll taxes or language tests were used to limit and suppress the ability to register or cast a ballot. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 improved voting access. Since the beginning of voter suppression efforts, proponents of these laws have cited concerns over electoral integrity as a justification for various restrictions and requirements, while opponents argue that these constitute bad faith given the lack of voter fraud evidence in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's suffrage in states of the United States</span>

Women's suffrage was established in the United States on a full or partial basis by various towns, counties, states, and territories during the latter decades of the 19th century and early part of the 20th century. As women received the right to vote in some places, they began running for public office and gaining positions as school board members, county clerks, state legislators, judges, and, in the case of Jeannette Rankin, as a member of Congress.

This is a timeline of voting rights in the United States, documenting when various groups in the country gained the right to vote or were disenfranchised.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black suffrage in the United States</span>

African Americans were fully enfranchised in practice throughout the United States by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Prior to the Civil War and the Reconstruction Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, some Black people in the United States had the right to vote, but this right was often abridged or taken away. After 1870, Black people were theoretically equal before the law, but in the period between the end of Reconstruction era and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 this was frequently infringed in practice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of women's suffrage in Texas</span>

This is a timeline of women's suffrage in Texas. Women's suffrage was brought up in Texas at the first state constitutional convention, which began in 1868. However, there was a lack of support for the proposal at the time to enfranchise women. Women continued to fight for the right to vote in the state. In 1918, women gained the right to vote in Texas primary elections. The Texas legislature ratified the 19th amendment on June 28, 1919, becoming the ninth state and the first Southern state to ratify the amendment. While white women had secured the vote, Black women still struggled to vote in Texas. In 1944, white primaries were declared unconstitutional. Poll taxes were outlawed in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, fully enfranchising Black women voters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's poll tax repeal movement</span> Movement to abolish US poll taxes

The women's poll tax repeal movement was a movement in the United States, predominantly led by women, that attempted to secure the abolition of poll taxes as a prerequisite for voting in the Southern states. The movement began shortly after the ratification in 1920 of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which granted suffrage to women. Before obtaining the right to vote, women were not obliged to pay the tax, but shortly after the Nineteenth Amendment became law, Southern states began examining how poll tax statutes could be applied to women. For example, North and South Carolina exempted women from payment of the tax, while Georgia did not require women to pay it unless they registered to vote. In other Southern states, the tax was due cumulatively for each year someone had been eligible to vote.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's suffrage in Alabama</span>

Early women's suffrage work in Alabama started in the 1860s. Priscilla Holmes Drake was the driving force behind suffrage work until the 1890s. Several suffrage groups were formed, including a state suffrage group, the Alabama Woman Suffrage Organization (AWSO). The Alabama Constitution had a convention in 1901 and suffragists spoke and lobbied for women's rights provisions. However, the final constitution continued to exclude women. Women's suffrage efforts were mainly dormant until the 1910s when new suffrage groups were formed. Suffragists in Alabama worked to get a state amendment ratified and when this failed, got behind the push for a federal amendment. Alabama did not ratify the Nineteenth Amendment until 1953. For many years, both white women and African American women were disenfranchised by poll taxes. Black women had other barriers to voting including literacy tests and intimidation. Black women would not be able to fully access their right to vote until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

National Committee to Abolish the Poll Tax was an organization founded in 1941 by civil rights activists Joseph Gelders and Virginia Durr to obtain federal action to override poll tax legislation in the Southern United States, which was used to restrict voter rights.

References

Informational notes

  1. ↑ Legislation was passed by the House of the Assembly in 1891 and confirmed by voter referendum in 1892. [23] : 246 
  2. ↑ Though poll tax legislation was approved in 1885, charging the tax as a condition of voting did not occur until 1889. [21] : 471 
  3. ↑ While the Constitution of 1877 allowed collection of poll taxes to fund schools, [29] the requirement to pay as a prerequisite to voting was not authorized until 1908. [28]
  4. ↑ The State Constitution established a poll tax in 1870, but it remained unimplemented until 1890 when the legislature activated it. [21] : 471  [38]

Citations

  1. ↑ Erb, Kelly Phillips. "For Election Day, A History Of The Poll Tax In America". Forbes. Retrieved August 10, 2024.
  2. ↑ "How Jim Crow‑Era Laws Suppressed the African American Vote for Generations". HISTORY. August 8, 2023. Retrieved August 10, 2024.
  3. ↑ "Interpretation: The Twenty-Fourth Amendment | Constitution Center". National Constitution Center – constitutioncenter.org. Retrieved August 10, 2024.
  4. ↑ State of Maine Special Tax Commission (1890). Report of the Special Tax Commission of Maine. Maine: Burleigh & Flynt. pp. 39–41. OCLC   551368287.
  5. ↑ Bullock, Charles J. (1916). "The Taxation of Property and Income in Massachusetts". The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 31 (1): 1–61. doi:10.2307/1885988. JSTOR   1885988.
  6. ↑ Greenblatt, Alan (October 22, 2013). "The Racial History Of The 'Grandfather Clause'". Code Switch. NPR. Retrieved June 8, 2020.
  7. ↑ "Civil Rights Movement – Voting Rights: Are You "Qualified" to Vote? Take a "Literacy Test" to Find Out". crmvet.org. Retrieved September 21, 2019.
  8. ↑ "Virginia's Constitutional Convention of 1901–1902". Virginia Historical Society. Archived from the original on October 2, 2006. Retrieved September 14, 2006.
  9. ↑ Dabney, Virginius (1971). Virginia, The New Dominion. University Press of Virginia. pp. 436–437. ISBN   978-0-8139-1015-4.
  10. 1 2 "Historical Barriers to Voting". Texas Politics. University of Texas. Archived from the original on April 2, 2008. Retrieved November 4, 2012.
  11. ↑ "Atlanta in the Civil Rights Movement". Atlanta Regional Council for Higher Education. Archived from the original on June 22, 2004.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 Wilkerson-Freeman, Sarah (2002). "The Second Battle for Woman Suffrage: Alabama White Women, the Poll Tax, and V. O. Key's Master Narrative of Southern Politics". The Journal of Southern History. 68 (2): 333–374. doi:10.2307/3069935. JSTOR   3069935.
  13. ↑ Jones-Branch, Cherisse (2006). ""To Speak When and Where I Can": African American Women's Political Activism in South Carolina in the 1940s and 1950s". The South Carolina Historical Magazine. 107 (3): 204–224. ISSN   0038-3082.
  14. ↑ Jones-Branch, Cherisse (July 2006). "'To Speak When and Where I Can': African American Women's Political Activism in South Carolina in the 1940s and 1950s". The South Carolina Historical Magazine. 107 (3): 206. JSTOR   27570823.
  15. ↑ Andrews, E. Benjamin (1912). History of the United States. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p.  28. ISBN   9781449977320.
  16. ↑ Pildes, Richard H. (2000). "Democracy, Anti-Democracy, and the Canon". Constitutional Commentary. 17. doi:10.2139/ssrn.224731. hdl: 11299/168068 . SSRN   224731.
  17. ↑ Novotny, Patrick (2007). This Georgia Rising: Education, Civil Rights, and the Politics of Change in Georgia in The 1940s. Mercer University Press. pp. 150–. ISBN   9780881460889 . Retrieved January 6, 2013.
  18. ↑ Mohl, Raymond A. (1995). "Race Relations in Miami since the 1920s". In Colburn, David R.; Landers, Jane L. (eds.). The African American Heritage of Florida. University Press of Florida. pp. 326–365. ISBN   978-0813013329.
  19. ↑ Jillson, Cal (February 22, 2011). Texas Politics: Governing the Lone Star State. Taylor & Francis. pp. 38–. ISBN   9780415890601 . Retrieved January 6, 2013.
  20. ↑ Hansen, Harry, ed. (1966). The World Almanac and Book of Facts: 1966. New York World-Telegram. p. 68. OCLC   277006640.
  21. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Williams, Frank B. Jr. (November 1952). "The Poll Tax as a Suffrage Requirement in the South, 1870-1901". The Journal of Southern History . 18 (4). Athens, Georgia: Southern Historical Association: 469–496. doi:10.2307/2955220. ISSN   0022-4642. JSTOR   2955220 . Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  22. ↑ "Federal Judges Strike State's Poll Tax". The Anniston Star . Anniston, Alabama. Associated Press. April 8, 1966. p. 1. Retrieved November 8, 2020– via Newspapers.com.
  23. ↑ Branam, Chris M. (Autumn 2010). "Another Look at Disfranchisement in Arkansas, 1888—1894". The Arkansas Historical Quarterly . 69 (3). Fayetteville, Arkansas: Arkansas Historical Association: 245–262. ISSN   0004-1823. JSTOR   23046114 . Retrieved December 15, 2020.
  24. ↑ Lackey, John (1965). "The Poll Tax: Its Impact on Racial Suffrage". Kentucky Law Journal . 54 (2). Lexington, Kentucky: University of Kentucky College of Law: 423–432. ISSN   0023-026X. Archived from the original on March 21, 2020. Retrieved October 31, 2020.
  25. ↑ Room, Anne T. Kent California (June 18, 2021). "History of the California Poll Tax". Anne T. Kent California Room Newsletter. Retrieved July 29, 2022.
  26. ↑ "Poll Tax Receipts". Jacksonville Public Library. Retrieved January 24, 2020.
  27. ↑ "Dade Men Hail Teachers' Aid, Poll Tax Death". Daily News Bureau. Miami Daily News. June 6, 1937. Retrieved January 24, 2020.
  28. 1 2 Ogden, Frederic D. (1958). The Poll Tax in the South. Birmingham, Alabama: University of Alabama Press. p. 4. OCLC   918357443.
  29. ↑ Gigantino, Jim (August 20, 2020). "Constitutional Convention of 1877". georgiaencyclopedia.org. Atlanta, Georgia: Georgia Humanities. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved December 15, 2020.
  30. ↑ "State Constitution of Louisiana, 1898, Suffrage and Elections". The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. April 8, 2015. Retrieved July 29, 2022.
  31. ↑ Podolefsky, Ronnie L. (1998). "Illusion of Suffrage: Female Voting Rights and the Women's Poll Tax Repeal Movement after the Nineteenth Amendment". Notre Dame Law Review . 73 (3). Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame. ISSN   0745-3515. Archived from the original on October 3, 2020. Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  32. ↑ "Maine Senate Votes Repeal of Poll Tax on Adult Males". New York Times (March 13): 35. 1973.
  33. ↑ "Poll Tax Receipts". My Times with the Sisters. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
  34. ↑ "Rule State Poll Tax Is Unconstitutional". The Hattiesburg American . Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Associated Press. April 8, 1966. p. 1. Retrieved November 5, 2020– via Newspapers.com.
  35. ↑ "Oklahoma Repeal Poll Tax, State Question 590 (1986)". Ballotpedia.
  36. ↑ Bemesderfer, Jean (Fall 2020). "Speaking of Rights and Wrongs: Fighting for Black Women's Suffrage, Part Two" (PDF). Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society Newsletter. Easton, Pennsylvania: Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society. Archived (PDF) from the original on November 11, 2020. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  37. ↑ "Poll Tax Dropped as S. C. Voting Requirement". The Index-Journal. Greenwood, South Carolina. Associated Press. February 13, 1951. p. 1. Retrieved December 13, 2020– via Newspapers.com.
  38. ↑ Lester, Connie L. (2002). "Disfranchising Laws". Tennessee Encyclopedia . Nashville, Tennessee: Tennessee Historical Society. Archived from the original on November 25, 2020. Retrieved December 15, 2020.
  39. 1 2 Alexander, Seth; Blentlinger, Kaitlyn; Hagemann, Amber; Bean, Nathan (April 29, 2015). "1963, 1966: Campaigns to Repeal Texas Poll Taxes". South Texas Rabble Rousers History Project. Corpus Christi, Texas. Archived from the original on June 6, 2016. Retrieved October 31, 2020.
  40. ↑ Congress, United States (1965). Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the ... Congress. U.S. Government Printing Office.
  41. ↑ "High Court Kills Virginia's Poll Tax in 6-to-3 Decision (pt. 1)". The Danville Register . Danville, Virginia. Associated Press. March 25, 1966. p. 1. Retrieved November 8, 2020– via Newspapers.com.
  42. ↑ "Court (pt. 2)". The Danville Register . Danville, Virginia. Associated Press. March 25, 1966. p. 2. Retrieved November 8, 2020– via Newspapers.com.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.