Legal Disenfranchisement
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Three historic actions set the stage for legally disenfranchising African American voters:
- The end of Reconstruction with the Hayes-Tilden Compromise removed federal troops from the Confederate states in 1877. This meant Black voters had to depend on states and the local police for support, which was seldom given, and so these voters were exposed to violence.
- The decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. v. Cruikshank in 1875 stated that the 14th Amendment applied only to state action, not to individual action. For example, “state action” would include written laws barring voting participation on the basis of skin color, and "individual action" would include KKK members lurking around the polls intimidating African American voters. This required disenfranchised voters to seek remedies in state courts under state laws, not in federal courts.
- The Supreme Court decision in U.S. v. Reese in 1876 allowed states to create legal barriers to voting that applied to all voters (like poll taxes and grandfather clauses), but they disproportionately affected the Black community both by the laws themselves as well as the way they were unevenly applied from person to person.
Between 1890 and 1908, 10 of the 11 former Confederate states ratified constitutions or amendments that made voter registration and voting more difficult for African Americans.