Could you vote in Mississippi?

• All prisoners shall be bailable by sufficient sureties, unless for capital offenses when the proof is evident of presumption great; and the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in case of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.

• The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.

Chapter 31 Section 2: Voting Rights

• What problems do you see in voting this way?

• “I felt nobody could really oppose voting. It was not like school desegregation with people saying, ‘We don’t want our little blond daughter going to school with a Negro.’” JFK

Amendments after the Civil War

• 13th – Abolishes slavery

• 14th – Gives full rights of citizenship to all Americans

• 15th – Gives all male citizens the right to vote.

• Threats

• Poll Tax (1964 24th Amendment)

• Literacy Test (Voting Rights Act 1965)

• Grandfather Clause (outlawed in 1915)

How can you prevent blacks from voting without violating the 15th Amendment?

How can you prevent blacks from voting without violating the 15th Amendment?

• Threats – 33 lynchings in Mississippi between 1939-50,• Poll tax – most blacks were poor and couldn’t pay it.• Literacy test – read and interpret the state constitution to

a court clerk (who was always white). The clerk determined if you were literate. Clerks would give whites easy sentences to interpret and give blacks very difficult ones.

• Grandfather Clause – If your grandfather could vote before the Civil War, you too could be registered to vote. Obviously excluded blacks.

• In Mississippi this lowered the voting percentage of blacks from 90% during reconstruction to less than 6% after.

16th Baptist Church Bombing

Victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Alabama.

• In 2001 2 men were finally convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murders.

• If he was able to vote then so am I… whether I can pass my literacy test or not.

• How were blacks excluded by this?

What is done to help southern African Americans register.

• Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) is set up – it coordinated drives to register voters.

• The 24th Amendment is passed – it bans poll taxes in federal elections.

• Freedom Summer begins 1964 – volunteers (majority of whom were white) from northern universities traveled to Mississippi to help register black voters.

• Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) was set up – an all African American party set up to get black representatives into the Democratic National Convention (which picks the presidential candidate).

• The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed – it put the voter registration process under federal control to eliminate unfair registration practices. Ex: literacy tests (Selma Protests help lead to this)

Freedom Summer

Freedom Summer

• Goal

• Who was involved

• Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner

• Limited Success = fear

What were these men killed for? Why was outcry over these murders so much greater than

previous ones?

Burned Station wagon of the 3 civil rights workers.

Man found guilty of murder 41 years later.

• June 21, 2005 | PHILADELPHIA, Miss. -- Forty-one years to the day after three civil rights workers were killed here, former Klan leader and part-time preacher Edgar Ray Killen was convicted of manslaughter in connection with their deaths.

• He was the only person ever convicted in the murders.

Freedom Summer

The Selma March

• Attempt to register voters in Selma 1965

• Why march?

• Police Response

• Edmund Pettus Bridge

• End Result = Voting Rights Act 1965

The Selma March – it was a march to protest the beatings and arrests of black men trying

to register to vote…AKA Bloody Sunday• The march started in Selma

Alabama and was to go 54 miles to Montgomery.

• When the marchers began crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge out of Selma State Troopers and Selma police blocked their path.

• The marchers refused to turn around so the police used clubs and tear gas against them. All of this was captured on film and video.

Edmund Pettus Bridge

Selma

The major outcome of the Selma Protest was the speedy passage of the Voting

Rights Act of 1965.

Review• 13, 14, 15 Amendments.• Plessy V. Ferguson• Brown v. Board• Little Rock 9: Who? Where? What happened?• MLK : Profession, Wife, start?, head of? Mentor?• Sit-In: protesting? Group that organized?• CORE: how different than other groups• Birmingham vs. Albany: What did we learn?• Freedom Riders: What, Who organized? What happened?• James Meredith: Who? Where? How?• NAACP• Civil Rights Act of 1964• Name 3 ways to prevent African Americans from voting: