Racial Discrimination in the Electoral Process

Nearly a century ago the Supreme Court of the United States acknowledged that the right to vote is "a fundamental political right, because preservative of all rights." A Court thus armed with lofty ideals might have been expected to apply the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to strike down racially discriminatory restrictions on the franchise that were adopted by many states after the Reconstruction period ended with the Hayes-Tilden Compromise of 1876. However, the Supreme Court largely confined its efforts to rhetoric and for many decades closed its eyes to the use of the white primary, literacy tests, the poll tax, and other devices to deny black citizens the vote. The white primary was at last outlawed in 1944, but Congress did not act until 1957. The Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964 were well intended but not very effective. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended in 1970, is now the principal vehicle for protection of the franchise against racial discrimination. It forbids literacy tests and other discriminatory tests and devices and requires federal approval of any changes in voting qualifications or procedures in states with a history of voting discrimination.