One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy

by Carol Anderson

And the registrar’s decision on whether the would-be voter passed through this maze of legal gobbledygook was final. Non-appealable.25 Black coal miner Leon Alexander knew this firsthand. He recalled the moment, shortly after World War II, when he tried to register to vote in Alabama. He stood there at the counter waiting and waiting while the registrar made a big show of deliberately ignoring him. Finally, when whites came into the office, the registrar greeted them, provided the paperwork, and promptly registered them to vote. Alexander nevertheless remained standing there, refusing to leave. Irritated, the registrar finally asked, “What you want, boy?” “I wants to register to vote,” the coal miner replied. The registrar got the form and took it over to Alexander, knowing perfectly well what the final result would be before the pen had even scratched the paper. The coal miner went through the literacy test writing, and writing, and writing. The moment he was done, without even reviewing the sheet, the registrar took Alexander’s registration, “balled it up and threw it in the wastebasket.” “You disqualified,” he said. “You didn’t answer the question.”