Louisiana Voter Literacy Test, ca. 1964. From the Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, who add:
(This test is) typical of the tests used before passage of the Voting Rights Act to deny Blacks (and other non-whites) the right to vote. While state law mandated that the test be given to everyone who could not verify that they had at least a 5th-grade education, in real life almost all Blacks were forced to do so even if they had a college degree while whites were often excused from taking it no matter how little education they had.
Determination of who "passed" and who "failed" was entirely up to the whim of the Registrar of Voters — all of whom were white. In actuality, whites almost always "passed" no matter how many questions they missed, and Blacks were almost always "failed" in the selective judgement of the Registrar. On the 1963 test, for example, the Registrar was free to choose which portion of the Constitution to dictate — simple or complex — and was then the sole judge of the applicants written response (and in some cases their oral interpretation). The "citizenship test" component then asked often obscure questions about government and law and few people — Black or white — could correctly answer them all. If you were Black and missed one question you "failed," if you were white and couldn't even read the questions you "passed."
Click to enlarge and good luck.
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