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Essay On Disenfranchisement

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The system of racial domination known as "Jim Crow" worked to oppress African Americans economically, socially, and politically through the use of the law and violence. Jim Crow was essentially a series of laws that went against African Americans, a system specifically made to keep blacks segregated in the United States. This almost made it impossible for black people to live peacefully with their newly found "freedom." African Americans were economically, socially and politically abused through the uses of sharecropping, racial segregation, and disenfranchisement in societies. To begin, sharecropping was a type of farming that allowed people to rent small plots of land from landowners in exchange for a portion of their crop during harvesting …show more content…

Disenfranchisement was a system that took the vote away from blacks resulting in taking away a black man 's political power. White political leaders initially used this as a way to take the vote away from African Americans without seeming to violate the fifteenth amendment. 95 percent of blacks were forced to be excluded from the ability to participate in many political elections and conventions. In reading #3 on page 4, the writer explains some key aspects pertaining to the use of disenfranchisement. "And then, from roughly 1890-1908, southern states implemented de juire, or legal, disenfranchisement. They placed laws requiring voters to pass literacy tests (which could be judged arbitrarily) and pay poll taxes (which hit poor whites and poor blacks alike), effectively denying black men the franchise that was supposed to have been guaranteed by the 15th amendment"(page 4, reading #3). Since many blacks were poor and uneducated, the government used methods such as literacy tests and poll taxes to ensure that blacks would not be able to vote. Literacy tests were usually unnecessarily long and if a voter answered one question wrong, their entire participation in the election process was taken away. Blacks didn 't receive the best education, some received no education at all, making them more likely to not pass the test taking away their privilege to vote.

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