''Lassiter v. Northampton County Board of Elections'', 360 U.S. 45 (1959), was a case challenging the constitutionality of the rule of
Northampton County, North Carolina
Northampton County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 17,471. Its county seat is Jackson.
Northampton County is part of the Roanoke Rapids, NC Micropolitan Statistical Area, wh ...
requiring potential voters to pass a
literacy test
A literacy test assesses a person's literacy skills: their ability to read and write have been administered by various governments, particularly to immigrants. In the United States, between the 1850s and 1960s, literacy tests were administered t ...
to vote, appealed from the Supreme Court of that state.
Opinion
The opinion of the court, delivered by Justice
William O. Douglas
William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898January 19, 1980) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who was known for his strong progressive and civil libertarian views, and is often ci ...
, held that provided the tests were applied equally to all races, were not "merely a device to make racial discrimination easy," and did not "contravene any restriction that Congress, acting pursuant to its constitutional powers, has imposed," the literacy test could be an allowable use of the state's power to "determine the conditions under which the right of suffrage may be exercised."
In practice, such tests were administered by white voting officials in a discriminatory manner to disfranchise minorities. Given the results from states' using such devices for decades, Congress subsequently prohibited the use of such tests under the
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the civil rights movement ...
, drafted to protect citizens' constitutional rights to vote and provide federal oversight.
See also
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Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
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Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction Era
Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era in the United States, especially in the Southern United States, was based on a series of laws, new constitutions, and practices in the South that were deliberately used to prevent black citizens from ...
External links
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United States elections case law
United States Supreme Court cases
Northampton County, North Carolina
African-American history of North Carolina
History of voting rights in the United States
North Carolina elections
1959 in United States case law
United States Supreme Court cases of the Warren Court
Civil rights movement case law
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