Poll Tax Payment Certificate from the state of Alabama

Item

Title: Poll Tax Payment Certificate from the state of Alabama
Description: Poll taxes were one of the many legal methods by which southern states prevented disproportionately impoverished Black communities from voting and exerting political power following Reconstruction. At the polls, voters in certain southern states were required to pay a fee in order to cast their ballots, but a “grandfather clause” could exempt poor white people from this requirement if they descended from someone who voted before the Civil War. In 1964, the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution banned poll taxes in federal elections, but five states retained them for state and local elections. This certificate issued by the United States Civil Service Commission is evidence that on January 29, 1966, Alice Irby of Selma, Alabama paid the three-dollar poll tax in order to vote in that year’s elections. Only a few months later, civil rights lawyers and grassroots activists in Virginia would challenge state poll taxes in the Supreme Court, which would result in them being declared unconstitutional.
Creator: United States Civil Service Commission See all items with this value
Publisher: Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
Date: January 29, 1966 See all items with this value
Type: Certificate
Format: Ink on paper, H x W: 6 1/2 × 9 1/16 in. (16.5 × 23 cm). Jpg file.
Language: English
Subject: Voting rights See all items with this value; Selma, Alabama See all items with this value; Poll tax See all items with this value; Civil rights movement See all items with this value; Irby, Alice See all items with this value; Voter suppression See all items with this value; Voter registration See all items with this value
Place: Selma, Alabama
Rights Holder: Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift from the family of Alice Irby
Rights: Public domain

Item sets: Modern Voting Rights

Site pages: Brass Tactics: Suppressing, Protecting, and Expanding the Right to Vote

Media: NMAAHC-2017_65_001-000001.jpg

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Items with "Related Item: Poll Tax Payment Certificate from the state of Alabama"
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Mrs. Guilford, 94, reflects on poll taxes, literacy tests and new efforts to limit voting	Moving Image