Literacy Tests

Definition

Literacy tests were used as a requirement that voters demonstrate basic reading skills before being allowed to cast ballots. Like poll taxes, these tests were often used in the South during Jim Crow era as another method to disenfranchise African American voters.

Related terms

Voting Rights Act of 1965: Legislation passed by Congress that prohibited racial discrimination in voting.

Segregation: The enforced separation of different racial groups within a country or community.

14th Amendment: An amendment added to the U.S Constitution granting citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to African Americans and slaves who had been emancipated after the American Civil War.