White Supremacy and Voter Suppression

White supremacy groups and local officials employed various tactics to suppress Black voting rights and maintain racial segregation in the South.

Example: In 1887, over 30 Black sugarcane workers in Louisiana were shot dead during a strike for fair wages, illustrating the violent suppression of African American economic and civil rights activism.

Voter suppression methods included:

• Violence and intimidation at polling places
• Fraudulent practices by voting officials
• Implementation of poll taxes (starting in 1871)
• The "grandfather clause," which exempted individuals whose ancestors could vote before the Civil War from literacy tests and poll taxes

Vocabulary: Grandfather clause - A legal provision that allowed individuals to vote without passing literacy tests or paying poll taxes if their ancestors had the right to vote before the Civil War, effectively disenfranchising many Black voters.

These tactics were widespread throughout the South and effectively prevented many Black Americans from exercising their right to vote, thus undermining the political gains they had made during Reconstruction.

Highlight: The combination of legal barriers and extralegal intimidation created a system of disenfranchisement that persisted for decades, significantly impacting the civil rights of African Americans.