Speaker 1: On today's episode. If I didn't know, maybe you didn't
Speaker 1: either test time. I didn't know. Maybe you didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't know. Maybe you didn't kid, I didn't know. Maybe
Speaker 1: you didn't get I didn't. I didn't know. I didn't know.
Speaker 1: So dig After the Civil War, a lot of states
Speaker 1: enacted literacy tests as a voting requirement. Now, the purpose,
Speaker 1: of course, was to exclude people with minimal literacy, in
Speaker 1: particular for African Americans in the South. We're talking Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: and South Carolina. Now how did they achieve such a task.
Speaker 1: It was simple. They would ask these prospective voters to
Speaker 1: interpret let's say, abstract provisions of the U. S Constitution,
Speaker 1: and they would reject those applications for any errors. After
Speaker 1: a simple Google search, I came upon a sample voter
Speaker 1: registration application featuring a literacy test that was used by W. C. Patton,
Speaker 1: who was the head of the Double A CP voter
Speaker 1: registration program. And he would use this sample to educate
Speaker 1: African American voters before they went to register to vote. So,
Speaker 1: get out your pen and pad. I'm gonna ask you,
Speaker 1: let's say, ten questions, and you let me know how
Speaker 1: well you did on this literacy test in attempts to
Speaker 1: register to vote. Now, first, let me read the directions.
Speaker 1: This test is to be given to anyone who cannot
Speaker 1: prove a fifth grade education. Do what you were told
Speaker 1: to do in each statement, nothing more, nothing less. Be careful,
Speaker 1: as one wrong answer denotes failure of the test. You
Speaker 1: have ten minutes to complete the twenty question test of
Speaker 1: First the literacy portion. Circle the first first letter of
Speaker 1: the alphabet in this line. In the first circle below,
Speaker 1: write the last letter of the first word beginning with L.
Speaker 1: In the space below, Write the word noise backwards and
Speaker 1: place a dot over what would be its second letter
Speaker 1: should it have been written forward, spell backwards forwards. Print
Speaker 1: the word vote upside down, but in the correct order,
Speaker 1: like man, come on, Place across over the tenth letter
Speaker 1: in this line. A line under the first space in
Speaker 1: this sentence, and circle around the last V in the
Speaker 1: second line of this sentence, Man, what all these tongue
Speaker 1: twisters and confusion to tory words? Yes, confusion a tory.
Speaker 1: Then they'd like to know how much you know about
Speaker 1: the government. There are three main types of city government
Speaker 1: in your state. Name one name, the Attorney General of
Speaker 1: the United States. If the President does not wish to
Speaker 1: sign a bill, how many days is he allowed in
Speaker 1: which to return it to Congress for reconsideration? Where's the
Speaker 1: damn answarkey? Name one area of authority over state militia
Speaker 1: reserved exclusively to the states man? By time's up? How'd
Speaker 1: you do? Ten questions? How many do you get? Right?
Speaker 1: Moral of the story is this was super insulting. And
Speaker 1: thank God for the Federal Voting Rights Act of nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five, because if we hadn't had it, we'd still
Speaker 1: be taking these literacy tests just to get our ass
Speaker 1: beat in line attempting to vote. And I know the
Speaker 1: O G say, hey, you should vote now, because these
Speaker 1: are the things that we had to go through in
Speaker 1: order to have the privilege of voting then. And I
Speaker 1: think the retort would be, was it really a privilege?
Speaker 1: Does voting work? I'm interested in starting the conversation because
Speaker 1: that literacy test was something that I didn't know. Maybe
Speaker 1: you didn't either.