In Peace and Freedom: My Journey in Selma

3. Preparing to Register to Vote

45 3 Preparing to Register to Vote Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others. —Coretta Scott King The voter registration office at the Dallas County Courthouse was open only two days a month, the first and third Thursdays, so this limited the opportunities to attempt to register. When I heard about this ridiculous twice-a-month schedule, I thought, “Well, we’re going to change that!” Some weeks people gathered at Brown Chapel and marched to the voter registration office together. They would line up waiting to register , calling attention to the issue of voter registration, which was part of the direct action strategy. The registrars were known to open the office late and move through the process so slowly that few registrants had the chance to register. A written examination, which was referred to as the literacy test (see appendix A for an example), was given to every person who registered to vote. It was called a literacy test by the people who were taking it. The registrar called it an application. This was another way of discriminating against black people: using the results of this test to deny them the right to vote. Historically, a form of literacy test had been used to disqualify African Americans from voting following the Reconstruction era in the late 1800s because of white southerners’ fear of black domination. Literacy tests were also used in 1917 as a component of the immigration process, then continued in the southern states with the voter registration process.1 The language of the literacy test was difficult and confusing, and often went over the heads of uneducated registrants. They could barely read the words on the test, much less understand what it was asking. It’s 46 IN PEACE AND FREEDOM one thing to determine whether a person is literate, and another thing for them to understand the information required on the test. Words such as “impeachment” and “reconsideration” interfered with their comprehension of the questions and hindered them from answering correctly. My favorite absurd test question was “Have you ever been guilty of moral turpitude?” It seemed like the registration process was guilty of moral turpitude. Registration procedures were the picture of racial discrimination and intimidation. The registrars had the sole power to determine whether a person had correctly filled out the exam. The applicant might be asked to read aloud and interpret a section of the U.S. Constitution to the satisfaction of the registrars, who were sometimes illiterate themselves. That was a sure question to trip up the applicants, even if they passed everything else. How would the registrars determine whether the questions were accurately answered? It was totally subjective. It was simply at the registrars ’ discretion whether someone passed or failed, and they could decide on a whim, “You didn’t pass the test because you didn’t interpret the passage right.” When the registrants received their results in the mail about a month later, they had no idea which questions were missed. Oddly enough, some schoolteachers, college professors, and professionals failed the test, yet some uneducated laborers passed. It didn’t seem to matter to the registrars who got registered; they just had to be able to say that some passed the test and were allowed to register, perhaps one or two each time the office was open, just to stay in compliance with a federal court order and to keep reporters at bay. The registrants had no recourse when they failed except to keep coming back and trying again. I heard that names of registrants were often passed along to the Ku Klux Klan, who continued harassment in their own ways. Our goal was to get as many people as possible to go to the courthouse and attempt to register in order to demonstrate that the process was discriminatory and to help build a case to eliminate the ludicrous literacy test. When I arrived in Selma, Mrs. Foster was already teaching members of the black community about the literacy test. During the day she worked as a dental hygienist with her brother, Dr. Sullivan Jackson, a dentist with an all-black clientele. He was also a true friend of the movement , often housing leaders including Dr. King, who stayed at his home Preparing to...