A method used to restrict voting rights, primarily targeting African Americans in the Southern United States. These assessments evaluated a person’s reading and writing abilities, often employing unfairly difficult or obscure passages designed to disqualify potential voters. Success was not necessarily tied to actual literacy; rather, the tests became tools of discrimination, selectively applied and graded to disenfranchise specific groups.
The significance of understanding these discriminatory measures lies in recognizing their role in suppressing minority political participation and maintaining unequal power structures. Comprehending this history is vital for appreciating the long struggle for voting rights in the United States and for guarding against contemporary forms of voter suppression. These tests, while ostensibly about literacy, were fundamentally about undermining democratic principles.