One Person, No Vote (YA edition): How Not All Voters Are Treated Equally

by Carol Anderson

After Reconstruction, legions of white people did their utmost to ensure white rule—to keep black men from voting, to prevent black America from having any real political power. (While some black men did hold political office after Reconstruction, the numbers dwindled and dwindled.) Black voter suppression really ramped up in 1890 when the Magnolia State passed what became known as the Mississippi Plan: a dizzying array of poll taxes; literacy tests; understanding clauses (which officials used to justify registering some white illiterate people who they claimed understood the information read to them); newfangled voter registration rules; and “good character” clauses.