By: Clary Doyle
Edited By: maggie farina and kailey morand
The idea that history repeats itself is regarded as an axiom. However, until most Americans are dressing up in Roman tunics and watching gladiator fights, I won’t claim that the cliche is true. Instead, citizens find themselves decked out in sports jerseys, watching the Super Bowl. The tradition is similar, but it doesn’t play out in exactly the same way. History does not go in circles—mankind isn’t walking in place. Rather, history spirals—it goes through a similar motion while forging a new path. The same phenomenon occurs when examining the Twenty-fourth Amendment of the American Constitution. The amendment states that it is illegal to make citizens pay to vote, but its ratification had a deeper connotation. It sought to fight prejudice surrounding the suffrage of minorities. Though decades have passed since its installment, Americans have not yet eradicated racist voting policies, and citizens continue to pay unfair fines in order to vote. Until the spiral stops, the Twenty-fourth Amendment will continue to be a relevant Constitutional right.
The creation of the Twenty-fourth Amendment is rooted in significant events that followed the Civil War. The ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment granted African Americans the right to vote. However, Southern white citizens and hate groups like the Klu Klux Klan detested the idea, as they feared a robust black population would have too much influence in elections. [1] To dampen African American power, invidious politicians responded by contriving petty laws that hindered a black person’s right to vote. [2] Just one of these many obstacles was the poll tax, a voting fee citizens had to pay before receiving a ballot. [3]
Poll taxes were not the only forms of voter suppression during that time. Some states had laws requiring African Americans to pass literacy tests—nearly impossible quizzes asking recondite questions. [4] In Louisiana’s 1964 literacy test, the heading delineates that unless one answers all thirty questions correctly in under ten minutes, they would fail. [5] The actual questions are intentionally deceitful and irrelevant to political knowledge.
Although literacy tests were clearly discriminatory, poll taxes proved to be worse. Making citizens pass a literacy test implies that voters must be educated. Requiring people to pay a fine insinuates that voters must be rich. Eight American states enforced poll taxes of a dollar or more.[6] Albeit the amount seems minuscule, the average black laborer in Atlanta, Georgia in 1897 earned only three dollars each week. [7] The proportionally large fine deprived thousands of black Americans of their Constitutional right. This disenfranchisement continued for years, and its effects were deleterious. For example, in Georgia, the poll tax decreased black voter turnout by fifty percent. [8] In this way, racist politicians ensured that the substantial black population in their regions would not oust them from office.
For many years, Americans criticized the poll tax and raised their concerns to all three branches of government. In the judicial branch, a court case to terminate the poll tax went to the Supreme Court, but lost when judges argued it took away from state rights. [9] In the legislative branch, laws were proposed to ban the tax, and, in response, Southern politicians filibustered. [10] Only in the executive branch did John F. Kennedy finally put an end to the poll tax by instating the Twenty-fourth Amendment in 1964, ending the US’s nearly one hundred year battle to dissolve poll taxes. [11]
Though gone in name, many Americans today wonder if the poll tax ever really went away. The symbolic act of disenfranchising minority groups by fining them still exists in many states. Though not explicitly called poll taxes, Florida requires citizens released from prison to pay all fines related to their sentence before they are eligible to vote. [12] In 2010, over 22,000 persons on probation in Florida owed, on average, $8,195 in court fines, medical debts, and legal fees. [13] Florida is not alone in this requirement. Many southern states, such as Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, and Tennessee have similar laws. [14]
Nowhere does the Constitution delineate that citizens must pay for their amendment rights. If the same prisoner who wasn’t eligible to vote for failure to pay court fees wanted to protest peacefully, they would not be stopped. This highlights a key inconsistency in the modern day poll tax—if citizens are granted their First Amendment right, why are they denied their Twenty-fourth Amendment right?
Unfortunately, the parallels for these modern day poll taxes are rooted in racist beliefs. African Americans make up only 12 percent of the American adult population, but they constitute 33 percent of the prison populations. [15] Hispanic persons, too, are disproportionately affected. While only accounting for 16 percent of the national population, they represent 23 percent of incarcerated persons. [16] Thus, minorities and people of color face more barriers to voting than white citizens. Moreover, the lower average incomes of African Americans and Hispanic people contributes to their inability to pay such fines. [17]
Though the times have changed, the concept remains: poll taxes disenfranchise minorities, especially African-Americans. These injustices are not just mishaps of the past; they are thriving obstacles to suffrage today. The full potential of the Twenty-Fourth Amendment will not be realized until poll taxes of every form are expunged. If history moved in a circle, mankind would be cursed to relive the same inequities over and over. However, because history spirals, by fighting for justice, the pattern can be broken.
Notes:
Stoney, George C., “Suffrage in the South Part I: The Poll Tax,” Survey Graphic, Vol. 29, No. 1, p. 5 (Part 1) and No. 3, p. 163 (Part 2) (January 1, 1940), http://newdeal.feri.org/texts/246.htm.
Ibid.
Ibid.
“Lousiana’s 1964 Literacy Test.” Static Oprah. http://static.oprah.com/images/o2/201412/LA-literacy-test.pdf.
Ibid.
Stoney, George C., “Suffrage in the South Part I: The Poll Tax,” Survey Graphic, Vol. 29, No. 1, p. 5 (Part 1) and No. 3, p. 163 (Part 2) (January 1, 1940), http://newdeal.feri.org/texts/246.htm.
United States Bureau of Labor. "Condition of the Negro in Various Cities," in United States. Bureau of Labor. "May 1897 : Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor, No. 10, Volume II," Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor, Nos. 1 - 100 (May 1897): 25-137. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/3943/item/477562/toc/498120.
Evans, Farrell. “How Jim Crow-Era Laws Suppressed the African American Vote for Generations.” History. 13 May. 2021. https://www.history.com/news/jim-crow-laws-black-vote.
“Twenty-fourth Amendment to the Constitution.” Totally History. Totally History, 2012. http://totallyhistory.com/24th-amendment-to-the-constitution/.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ludwig, Mike. “Modern-day ‘poll taxes’ disenfranchise millions of low-income voters.” Salon. salon.com, LLC, 2019. https://www.salon.com/2019/08/03/modern-day-poll-taxes disenfranchise-millions-of-low-income-voters_partner/.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Gramlich, John. “The gap between the number of blacks and whites in prison is shrinking.” Pew Research Center. Pew Research Center, 30 April 2019. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/30/shrinking-gap-between-number-of-blacks-and-whites-in-prison/.
Ibid.
Gold, Howard. “The racial wage gap is at the heart of America’s inequality.” Market Watch. MarketWatch, Inc., 15 July 2020. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-racial-wealth-gap-is-at-the-heart-of-americas-inequality-2020-07-15.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Evans, Farrell. “How Jim Crow-Era Laws Suppressed the African American Vote for Generations.” History. 13 May. 2021. https://www.history.com/news/jim-crow-laws- black-vote.
Gold, Howard. “The racial wage gap is at the heart of America’s inequality.” Market Watch. MarketWatch, Inc., 15 July 2020. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-racial-wealth- gap-is-at-the-heart-of-americas-inequality-2020-07-15.
Gramlich, John. “The gap between the number of blacks and whites in prison is shrinking.” Pew Research Center. Pew Research Center, 30 April 2019.https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
tank/2019/04/30/shrinking-gap-between-number-of-blacks-and-whites-in-prison/.
“Lousiana’s 1964 Literacy Test.” Static Oprah. http://static.oprah.com/images/o2/201412/LA- literacy-test.pdf.
Ludwig, Mike. “Modern-day ‘poll taxes’ disenfranchise millions of low-income voters.” Salon. salon.com, LLC, 2019. https://www.salon.com/2019/08/03/modern-day-poll-taxes- disenfranchise-millions-of-low-income-voters_partner/.
Stoney, George C., “Suffrage in the South Part I: The Poll Tax,” Survey Graphic, Vol. 29, No. 1, p. 5 (Part 1) and No. 3, p. 163 (Part 2) (January 1, 1940), http://newdeal.feri.org/texts/ 246.htm.
“Twenty-fourth Amendment to the Constitution.” Totally History. Totally History, 2012. http:// totallyhistory.com/24th-amendment-to-the-constitution/.
United States Bureau of Labor. "Condition of the Negro in Various Cities," in United States. Bureau of Labor. "May 1897 : Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor, No. 10, Volume II," Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor, Nos. 1 - 100 (May 1897) : 25-137. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/3943/item/477562/toc/498120.
