NC Policy Watch: “The North Carolina constitution contains an alarming provision from a dark period in our history: a literacy test requirement to keep Black voters from the ballot box.
I am determined to finally repeal it.
In 1899, the North Carolina legislature amended the state constitution with measures to steal and suppress Black political power. The literacy test, one of many tactics, required every person of color who wanted to exercise their freedom to vote to be able to read and write any section of the constitution in English. A “grandfather clause” protected white voters by stating that anyone who had been eligible to vote (or had an eligible ancestor) under 1867 state law was exempted from this test.
Politicians added the literacy test to our state constitution in the immediate aftermath of the 1898 Wilmington massacre, where white supremacists overthrew Black elected officials and murdered hundreds of Black North Carolinians. Lawmakers of the era were determined to preserve white political, social, and economic dominance in North Carolina. Their fingerprints are still on our constitution.
The federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed literacy tests and made North Carolina’s law unenforceable, but we have never managed to remove this stain from our core governing document. In 1970, North Carolinians voted against removing the literacy test from the state Constitution. In 2013 and 2019, bills to allow voters to vote for a literacy test repeal gained traction in the legislature but never passed.
We are reigniting this effort in the North Carolina General Assembly. Change is long overdue.”