From emancipation to the ballot in Mississippi

What happened after emancipation in Mississippi?

During Reconstruction, Black men in Mississippi registered in large numbers, and Black Mississippians served as legislators, sheriffs and members of Congress. The state sent Hiram Revels to the U.S. Senate in 1870, the first Black senator in the nation's history, and Blanche K. Bruce, the first Black senator to serve a full term, in 1875. Black voters were a majority of the electorate.

How was the vote taken away?

In 1875 white Democrats used organized violence, intimidation and fraud, later called the Mississippi Plan, to drive Black voters from the polls and retake the state government. For the next fifteen years, Black voting continued in some places but under constant threat. In 1890 a state constitutional convention, with only one Black delegate, wrote new rules meant to remove Black voters for good without openly mentioning race: a poll tax, long residency requirements, disqualification for certain crimes, and a literacy test with an "understanding clause."

Other Southern states copied the model. Mississippi's provisions survived a challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court in Williams v. Mississippi (1898).

What did the 1890 rules mean for Fannie Lou Hamer?

Seventy-two years later, the Sunflower County circuit clerk used the same understanding clause on her. On August 31, 1962, she was asked to copy a section of the constitution dealing with de facto laws and explain what it meant. The clerk failed her. She also learned she had to show receipts proving she had paid the poll tax for two years before she could vote. In January 1963 she passed, and in 1964 she cast her first vote in a Mississippi election.

What finally changed the rules?

The Twenty-fourth Amendment, ratified in January 1964, banned poll taxes in federal elections, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 suspended literacy tests and sent federal examiners to register voters. The Supreme Court struck down poll taxes in state elections in 1966. The testimony Mississippians gave during the 1965 Congressional Challenge, described on our page about it, was part of the record that pushed Congress to act.

Why is this page called juneteenthi.html?

This address comes from an earlier site on this domain. We kept it so links still work and used it to continue the story begun on our Juneteenth page.