Southern state legislatures employed literacy tests as part
of the voter registration process starting in the late 19th century.
Literacy tests were used to deny suffrage to African
Americans. The first formal voter literacy tests were introduced in 1890.
At first, whites were exempted from the literacy test if
they could meet alternate requirements (the grandfather clause) that, in
practice, excluded blacks. The Grandfather Clause allowed an illiterate person
to vote if he could show descent from someone who was eligible to vote before
1867 (when only whites could vote). Grandfather clauses were ruled
unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Guinn v
United States(1915). Nevertheless, literacy tests continued to be used to
disenfranchise blacks. The tests were usually administered orally by white
local officials, who had complete discretion over who passed and who failed.
Examples of questions asked of Blacks in Alabama included: naming all
sixty-seven county judges in the state, naming the date on which Oklahoma was
admitted to the Union, and declaring how many bubbles are in a bar of soap.
Example of a Literacy Test administered in Louisiana (one of the most notorious), circa 1963:
http://www.crmvet.org/info/la-littest2.pdf
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