Existing comment:
Fighting an unfair test
Mary Hampton of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, argued in this 1958 affidavit, "because of race or color I have not been allowed to register" after a clerk claimed she failed her voter test. Until a 1970 amendment to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed literacy tests nationwide, officials often unfairly administered state-required literacy or civic knowledge tests to keep away from the polls those whom they did not want to vote. |