CHAPTER FivE • Civil RigHTs 95
Separate-but-Equal
Doctrine
The doctrine holding
that separate-but-equal
facilities do not violate
the equal protection
clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution.
White Primary
A state primary election
that restricted voting to
whites only. Outlawed
by the Supreme Court
in 1944.
Grandfather Clause
A device used by southern
states to disenfranchise
African Americans. It
restricted voting to those
whose grandfathers had
voted before 1867.
Poll Tax
A special tax that had to
be paid as a qualification
for voting. The Twenty-
fourth Amendment to the
Constitution outlawed
the poll tax in national
elections, and in 1966, the
Supreme Court declared it
unconstitutional in state
elections as well.
Literacy Test
A test administered as a
precondition for voting,
often used to prevent
African Americans from
exercising their right
to vote.he boarded a train in New Orleans. The conductor made him leave the car, which was
restricted to whites, and directed him to a car for nonwhites. At that time, Louisiana had a
statute providing for separate railway cars for whites and African Americans.
Plessy went to court, claiming that such a statute was contrary to the Fourteenth
Amendment’s equal protection clause. In 1896, the United States Supreme Court rejected
Plessy’s contention in Plessy v. Ferguson.^3 The Court concluded that the Fourteenth
Amendment “could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or
to enforce social... equality.” The Court stated that segregation alone did not violate the
Constitution: “Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they
are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race
to the other.” So was born the separate-but-equal doctrine.
Plessy v. Ferguson became the judicial cornerstone of racial discrimination throughout
the United States. Even though Plessy upheld segregated facilities in railway cars only, it
was assumed that the Supreme Court was upholding segregation everywhere. The result
was a system of racial segregation, particularly in the South, supported by state and local
“Jim Crow” laws. (Jim Crow was an insulting term for African Americans derived from a
song-and-dance-show.) These laws required separate drinking fountains; separate seats in
theaters, restaurants, and hotels; separate public toilets; and separate waiting rooms for
the two races. “Separate” was indeed the rule, but “equal” was never enforced, nor was
it a reality.voting Barriers. The brief voting enfranchisement of African Americans ended after
1877, when the federal troops that occupied the South during the Reconstruction era
were withdrawn. White supremacist politicians regained control of state governments and,
using everything except race as a formal criterion, passed laws that effectively deprived
African Americans of the right to vote. By using the ruse that political parties were private
entities, the Democratic Party managed to keep black voters from its primaries. The white
primary was upheld by the Supreme Court until 1944, when the Court ruled it a violation
of the Fifteenth Amendment.^4
Another barrier to African American voting was the grandfather clause, which
restricted voting to those who could prove that their grandfathers had voted before 1867.
Poll taxes required the payment of a fee to vote. Thus, poor African Americans—as well
as poor whites—who could not afford to pay the tax were excluded from voting. Not
until the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1964 was the
poll tax eliminated as a precondition to voting. Literacy tests were also used to deny the
vote to African Americans. Such tests asked potential voters to read, recite, or interpret
complicated texts, such as a section of the state constitution, to the satisfaction of local
registrars—who were, of course, rarely satisfied with the responses of African Americans.Extralegal methods of Enforcing White supremacy. The second-class status of
African Americans was also a matter of social custom, especially in the South. In their inter-
actions with southern whites, African Americans were expected to observe an informal
but detailed code of behavior that confirmed their inferiority. The most serious violation of
the informal code was “familiarity” toward a white woman by an African American man.
The code was backed up by the common practice of lynching—mob action to murder an
accused individual, usually by hanging and sometimes accompanied by torture. Of course,3. 163 U.S. 537 (1896).
- Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944).
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