Bilbo was pointing to the power of the literacy test and understanding clause, which were tailor-made for societies that systematically refused to educate millions of their citizens and ensured that the bulk of the population remained functionally illiterate. By 1940, more than half of all African American adults in Mississippi had fewer than five years of formal education; almost 12 percent had no schooling whatsoever. The figures were even more dismal in South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, and Alabama.
