Misplaced Pages

#534465

92-878: Texas Township may refer to the following places in the United States: Texas Township, Lee County, Arkansas , in Lee County, Arkansas Texas Township, Craighead County, Arkansas , in Craighead County, Arkansas Texas Township, DeWitt County, Illinois Texas Township, Kalamazoo County, Michigan Texas Township, Dent County, Missouri Texas Township, Crawford County, Ohio Texas Township, Cotton County, Oklahoma Texas Township, Washita County, Oklahoma Texas Township, Pennsylvania See also [ edit ] Texas (disambiguation) [REDACTED] Topics referred to by

184-700: A property requirement . The literacy test was administered by the voting registrar; in practice, they were white Democrats. Provisions in the constitution also included a grandfather clause , which provided a loophole to enable illiterate whites to register to vote. It said that "Any citizen who was a voter on January 1, 1867, or his son or grandson, or any person naturalized prior to January 1, 1898, if applying for registration before September 1, 1898, might vote, notwithstanding illiteracy or poverty." Separate registration lists were kept for whites and blacks, making it easy for white registrars to discriminate against blacks in literacy tests. The constitution of 1898 also required

276-496: A Republican president as few as three times in that interval. Kentucky did usually vote for the Democratic Party in presidential elections from 1877 to 1964, but was still a competitive state at both the state and federal levels. The Democratic Party in the state was heavily divided over free silver and the role of corporations in the middle 1890s, and lost the governorship for the first time in forty years in 1895. In

368-464: A century in former Confederate states, were complicated. For varying reasons African Americans remained enfranchised in the border states despite movements for disfranchisement during the 1900s. The percentages of African Americans of the populations of the Border States was generally significantly lower than the percentages in the former Confederate states from 1870 to 1960. Less than 10% of

460-425: A class that covered most adult men who could have fought in the war, the paramilitary groups worked for political aims: to turn Republicans out of office, disrupt their organizing, and use force to intimidate and terrorize freedmen to keep them away from the polls. Such groups have been described as "the military arm of the Democratic Party". They were instrumental in many Southern states in driving blacks away from

552-505: A decade of disfranchisement, the white supremacy campaign had erased the image of the black middle class from the minds of white North Carolinians." In Virginia, Democrats sought disfranchisement in the late 19th century after a coalition of white and black Republicans with populist Democrats had come to power; the coalition had been formalized as the Readjuster Party . The Readjuster Party held control from 1881 to 1883, electing

644-713: A discriminatory way. They succeeded in disenfranchising most of the black citizens, as well as many poor whites in the South, and voter rolls dropped dramatically in each state. The Republican Party was nearly eliminated in the region for decades, and the Southern Democrats established one-party control throughout the Southern United States. In 1912, the Republican Party was split when Theodore Roosevelt ran against William Howard Taft ,

736-719: A federal crime. Despite white Southerners' complaints about Reconstruction, several Southern states kept most provisions of their Reconstruction constitutions for more than two decades, until late in the 19th century. In some states, the number of blacks elected to local offices reached a peak in the 1880s although Reconstruction had ended. They influenced the local level, where much of government took place, although they did not win many statewide or national seats. Subsequently, state legislatures passed restrictive laws or constitutions that made voter registration and election rules more complicated. As literacy tests and other restrictions could be applied subjectively, these changes sharply limited

828-478: A free vote and a fair count, how are you going to beat 135,000 by 95,000? How are you going to do it? You had set us an impossible task. We did not disfranchise the negroes until 1895. Then we had a constitutional convention convened which took the matter up calmly, deliberately, and avowedly with the purpose of disfranchising as many of them as we could under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. We adopted

920-606: A full count of the population, but they disfranchised several million black and white citizens. Southern white Democrats comprised the " Solid South ", a powerful voting bloc in Congress until the mid-20th century. Their representatives, re-elected repeatedly by one-party states, exercised the power of seniority, controlling numerous chairmanships of important committees in both houses. Their power allowed them to have control over rules, budgets and important patronage projects, among other issues, as well as to defeat bills to make lynching

1012-573: A governor and controlling the legislature, which also elected a US Senator from the state. As in North Carolina, state Democrats were able to divide Readjuster supporters through appeals to White Supremacy. After regaining power, Democrats changed state laws and the constitution in 1902 to disenfranchise blacks. They ratified the new constitution in the legislature and did not submit it to the popular vote. Voting in Virginia fell by nearly half as

SECTION 10

#1732782866535

1104-587: A large and increasingly educated black community concentrated in Baltimore. This city had many free blacks before the Civil War and they had established both economic and political power. The state legislature passed a poll tax in 1904, but incurred vigorous opposition and repealed it in 1911. Despite support among conservative whites in the conservative Eastern Shore , referendums for bills to disenfranchise blacks failed three times in 1905, 1908, and 1910, with

1196-528: A new constitution, which contained provisions for voter registration that required voters to pay poll taxes and pass a literacy test . The literacy test was subjectively applied by white administrators, and the two provisions effectively disenfranchised most blacks and many poor whites. The constitutional provisions survived a Supreme Court challenge in Williams v. Mississippi (1898). Other southern states quickly adopted new constitutions and what they called

1288-678: A new state legislative effort to disenfranchise blacks failed because of the strong organization of the Republican Party in pro-Union regions of the state. Republicans won Kentucky in the 1924 and 1928 presidential elections, the former of which was the only state that Warren G. Harding lost in the 1920 presidential election , but Coolidge won in the 1924 United States presidential election . Kentucky also elected some Republican governors during this period, such as William O'Connell Bradley (1895-1899), Augustus E. Willson (1907-1911), Edwin P. Morrow (1919-1923), Flem D. Sampson (1927-1931), and Simeon Willis (1943-1947). Maryland voted for

1380-457: A person to satisfy a longer residency requirement in the state, county, parish, and precinct before voting than did the constitution of 1879. This worked against the lower classes, who were more likely to move frequently for work, especially in agricultural areas where there were many migrant workers and sharecroppers. The effect of these changes on the population of black voters in Louisiana

1472-540: A result of the disfranchisement of blacks. The eighty years of white Democratic control ended only in the late 1960s after passage and enforcement of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the collapse of the Byrd Organization machine. Oklahoma was unique, as it only became a state in 1907 . During the American Civil War , most of what is now the U.S. state of Oklahoma was designated as

1564-541: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Lee County, Arkansas Lee County is a county located in the U.S. state of Arkansas . With its eastern border formed by the Mississippi River, it is considered to be part of the Arkansas Delta . As of the 2020 census , the population was 8,600. The county seat is Marianna . The county

1656-532: Is within one or more townships in an Arkansas county based on census maps and publications. The townships of Lee County are listed below; listed in parentheses are the cities, towns, and/or census-designated places that are fully or partially inside the township. Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era in the United States, especially in

1748-451: The 1896 presidential election , the state was exceedingly close, with McKinley becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to carry Kentucky, by a mere 277 votes, or 0.06352%. McKinley's victory was, by percentage margin, the seventh-closest popular results for presidential electors on record. In Kentucky, Lexington's city government had passed a poll tax in 1901, but it was declared invalid in state circuit courts. Six years later,

1840-672: The Carolinas in late 1871. United States marshals supervised state voter registrations and elections and could summon the help of military or naval forces if needed. These measures led to the demise of the first Klan by the early 1870s. New paramilitary groups quickly sprang up, as tens of thousands of veterans belonged to gun clubs and similar groups. A second wave of violence began, resulting in over 1,000 deaths, usually black or Republican. The Supreme Court ruled in 1876 in United States v. Cruikshank , arising from trials related to

1932-639: The Colfax Massacre , that protections of the Fourteenth Amendment, which the Enforcement Acts were intended to support, did not apply to the actions of individuals, but only to the actions of state governments. They recommended that persons seek relief from state courts, which had not been supportive of freedmen's rights. The paramilitary organizations that arose in the mid to late 1870s were part of continuing insurgency in

SECTION 20

#1732782866535

2024-624: The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution , ratified in 1870, which prohibited states from depriving voters of their voting rights based on race. The laws were frequently written in ways to be ostensibly non-racial on paper (and thus not violate the Fifteenth Amendment), but were implemented in ways that selectively suppressed black voters apart from other voters. Beginning in

2116-551: The Georgia poll tax in 1877. Other measures followed, particularly near the end of the century, after a Republican-Populist alliance caused the Democrats to temporarily lose some Congressional seats and control of some gubernatorial positions. To secure their power, the Democrats worked to exclude blacks (and most Republicans) from politics. The results could be seen across the South. After Reconstruction, Tennessee initially had

2208-854: The Indian Territory . Most tribal leaders in Indian Territory aligned with the Confederacy. Oklahoma disenfranchised its black population, which comprised less than 10% of the state's population from 1910 to 1960. In Guinn v. United States (1915), the Supreme Court invalidated the Oklahoma Constitution 's "old soldier" and "grandfather clause" exemptions from literacy tests. In practice, these had disenfranchised blacks, as had occurred in numerous Southern states. This decision affected similar provisions in

2300-621: The Knights of the White Camellia . Compared to the Klan, they were open societies, better organized, and devoted to the political goal of regaining control of the state legislatures and suppressing Republicans, including most blacks. They often solicited newspaper coverage for publicity to increase their threat. The scale of operations was such that in 1876, North Carolina had 20,000 men in rifle clubs. Made up of well-armed Confederate veterans,

2392-722: The Redeemers . In the South, the process of white Democrats regaining control of state governments has been called "the Redemption". African-American historians sometimes call the Compromise of 1877 "The Great Betrayal". Following continuing violence around elections as insurgents worked to suppress black voting, the Democratic-dominated Southern states passed legislation to create barriers to voter registrations by blacks and poor whites , starting with

2484-541: 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 registering to vote and voting. These measures were enacted by the former Confederate states at the turn of the 20th century. Efforts were also made in Maryland, Kentucky, and Oklahoma. Their actions were designed to thwart the objective of

2576-645: The United States Congress , where the Democratic Solid South enjoyed "about 25 extra seats in Congress for each decade between 1903 and 1953". Also, the Democratic dominance in the South meant that southern senators and representatives became entrenched in Congress. They favored seniority privileges in Congress, which became the standard by 1920, and Southerners controlled chairmanships of important committees , as well as

2668-549: The Voting Rights Act of 1965, newly registered African Americans began to support Democratic Party candidates. They have largely maintained this affiliation. Most whites have shifted into the Republican Party since the 1970s. Despite being a Democrat stronghold, in 2020 Donald Trump became the first Republican since 1972 (and only the second overall) to come within 5% of winning the county. Townships in Arkansas are

2760-547: The freedmen 's exercise of political power. In 1867, black men voted for the first time. By the 1868 presidential election , Texas, Mississippi, and Virginia had still not been re-admitted to the Union. General Ulysses S. Grant was elected as president thanks in part to 700,000 black voters. In February 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified; it was designed to protect blacks' right to vote from infringement by

2852-485: The "Mississippi Plan". By 1908, all states of the former Confederacy had passed new constitutions or suffrage amendments, sometimes bypassing general elections to achieve this. Legislators created a variety of barriers, including longer residency requirements, rule variations, and literacy and understanding tests, which were subjectively applied against minorities, or were particularly hard for the poor to fulfill. Such constitutional provisions were unsuccessfully challenged at

Texas Township - Misplaced Pages Continue

2944-451: The "Solid South" inhibited the national party from fulfilling center-left initiatives desired since the days of William Jennings Bryan . Woodrow Wilson , one of two Democrats elected to the presidency between Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt , was the first Southerner elected after 1856. He benefited from the disfranchisement of blacks and the crippling of the Republican Party in the South. Soon after taking office, Wilson directed

3036-743: The 1870s, white racists had used violence by domestic terrorism groups (such as the Ku Klux Klan ), as well as fraud, to suppress black voters. After regaining control of the state legislatures, Southern Democrats were alarmed by a late 19th-century alliance between Republicans and Populists that cost them some elections. After achieving control of state legislatures, white conservatives added to previous efforts and achieved widespread disfranchisement by law: from 1890 to 1908, Southern state legislatures passed new constitutions, constitutional amendments, and laws that made voter registration and voting more difficult, especially when administered by white staff in

3128-456: The 20th century, when it was worked by African-American sharecroppers and tenant farmers. In the post-Reconstruction era, whites struggled to re-establish white supremacy , by violence and intimidation of black Republican Party voters in this area and throughout the South. At the turn of the century, the state legislature passed measures that effectively disenfranchised most blacks for decades. The Equal Justice Initiative reported in 2015 that

3220-426: The Civil War, and some had accumulated property. Literacy was high among African Americans and, as Democrats crafted means to exclude them, suffrage campaigns helped reach blacks and teach them how to resist. In 1896, a biracial Republican coalition enabled the election of Lloyd Lowndes, Jr. as governor. During the 1900s Maryland was vigorously divided between supporters and opponents of disfranchisement, but it had

3312-518: The Confederate slave states from the Civil War. The border states, all slave states, also established laws requiring racial segregation between the 1880s and 1900s; however, disfranchisement of blacks was never attained to any significant degree. Most Border States did attempt such disfranchisement during the 1900s. The causes of the failure to disenfranchise blacks and poor whites in the Border States, as compared to their success for well over half

3404-468: The Democratic Party presidential candidate from 1868 to 1892, but the 1896 presidential election was a realignment in the state, similar to West Virginia. Maryland voted for the Republican Party presidential candidate from 1896 to 1928, except for Democrat Woodrow Wilson in 1912 and 1916. In contrast to the former Confederate states, nearly half the African American population was free before

3496-474: The Democratic legislatures passed Jim Crow laws to assert white supremacy, establish racial segregation in public facilities, and treat blacks as second-class citizens. The landmark court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) held that "separate but equal" facilities, as on railroad cars, were constitutional. The new constitutions passed numerous Supreme Court challenges. In cases where a particular restriction

3588-463: The Democratic presidential candidate in all but two elections: 1948, when it voted for third-party Strom Thurmond rather than for Harry Truman, and in 1972, when formerly Democratic voters crossed party lines and voted for Republican Richard Nixon . The former comes with the caveat that Black people could not vote in the South in 1948, and the latter was the last year that white conservatives dominated county politics. Following passage and enforcement of

3680-529: The Democrats adopted a constitutional suffrage amendment which lengthened the residence period required before registration and enacted both an educational qualification (to be assessed by a registrar, which meant that it could be subjectively applied) and prepayment of a poll tax . A grandfather clause exempted from the poll tax those entitled to vote on January 1, 1867. The legislature also passed Jim Crow laws establishing racial segregation in public facilities and transportation. The effect in North Carolina

3772-474: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. While their voter registration requirements applied to all citizens, in practice they disenfranchised most blacks. As in Alabama, they also "would remove [from voter registration rolls] the less educated, less organized, more impoverished whites as well – and that would ensure one-party Democratic rules through most of the 20th century in the South". The new provisions of

Texas Township - Misplaced Pages Continue

3864-571: The Jim Crow era. However, Oklahoma was still politically competitive at the federal level during the Jim Crow era. It voted for Warren G. Harding in 1920 and Herbert Hoover in 1928 . Oklahoma did not enact a poll tax found in the former Confederate states, and had a Republican presence in Northwestern Oklahoma with close ties to neighboring Kansas , a Republican stronghold. Oklahoma also elected three Republican senators in

3956-569: The Jim Crow era: John W. Harreld (1921-1927), William B. Pine (1925-1931), and Edward H. Moore (1943-1949). Starting in 1952 , well before the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Oklahoma has consistently voted Republican in presidential elections, except in Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 landslide. Oklahoma is the only Southern state to have never voted for a Democratic presidential candidate after 1964. The five border states of Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, had legacies similar to

4048-479: The North Carolina 1898 election and the following 1900 election. Simmons was elected as the state's US senator in 1900, holding office until 1931 through multiple re-elections by the state legislature and by popular vote after 1920. The Democrats used their power in the state legislature to disenfranchise minorities, primarily blacks, and ensure that Democratic Party and white power would not be threatened again. They passed laws restricting voter registration. In 1900

4140-589: The North to teach freedmen were sometimes attacked or intimidated as well. In 1870, the attempt of North Carolina's Republican Governor William W. Holden to suppress the Klan, known as the Kirk-Holden War , led to a backlash by whites, the election of a Democratic General Assembly in August 1870, and his impeachment and removal from office. The toll of Klan murders and attacks led Congress to pass laws to end

4232-459: The Republican party allowed them to gain control of Delaware's governorship throughout most of the twentieth century. The Republican Party ensured Black people could vote because of their general support for Republicans and thus undid restrictions on Black suffrage. For West Virginia , " reconstruction , in a sense, began in 1861". Unlike the other border states , West Virginia did not send

4324-719: The South after the Civil War, as armed veterans in the South resisted social changes, and worked to prevent black Americans and other Republicans from voting and running for office. Such groups included the White League , formed in Louisiana in 1874 from white militias , with chapters forming in other Southern states; the Red Shirts , formed in 1875 in Mississippi but also active in North Carolina and South Carolina; and other "White Liners," such as rifle clubs and

4416-511: The South. Political disfranchisement did not end until after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 , which authorized the federal government to monitor voter registration practices and elections where populations were historically underrepresented and to enforce constitutional voting rights. The challenge to voting rights has continued into the 21st century, as shown by numerous court cases in 2016 alone, though attempts to restrict voting rights for political advantage have not been confined to

4508-651: The Southern United States. The American Civil War ended in 1865, marking the start of the Reconstruction era in the eleven former Confederate states. Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts , starting in 1867, establishing military districts to oversee the affairs of these states pending reconstruction. During the Reconstruction era, blacks constituted absolute majorities of the populations in Mississippi and South Carolina , were equal to

4600-505: The Supreme Court in Giles v. Harris (1903). In practice, these provisions, including white primaries , created a maze that blocked most blacks and many poor whites from voting in Southern states until after the passage of federal civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s. Voter registration and turnout dropped sharply across the South, as most blacks and many poor whites were excluded from

4692-489: The ability to elect two US Senators) and were successful in electing several US Representatives elected through electoral fusion . The fusion coalition made impressive gains in the 1896 election when their legislative majority expanded. Republican Daniel Lindsay Russell won the gubernatorial race in 1897, the first Republican governor of the state since the end of Reconstruction in 1877. The election also resulted in more than 1,000 elected or appointed black officials, including

SECTION 50

#1732782866535

4784-429: The age of 18 living with them, 43.20% were married couples living together, 23.10% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.20% were non-families. 27.20% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.80% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.59 and the average family size was 3.14. In the county, the population was spread out, with 26.00% under

4876-470: The age of 18, 10.20% from 18 to 24, 28.70% from 25 to 44, 21.10% from 45 to 64, and 14.00% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 111.40 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 118.40 males. The median income for a household in the county was $ 20,510, and the median income for a family was $ 25,846. Males had a median income of $ 26,900 versus $ 19,505 for females. The per capita income for

4968-543: The best-educated of these men continued to "fail" the literacy tests administered by white registrars. The historian J. Morgan Kousser noted, "Within the Democratic party, the chief impetus for restriction came from the black belt members," whom he identified as "always socioeconomically privileged." In addition to wanting to affirm white supremacy, the planter and business elite were concerned about voting by lower-class and uneducated whites. Kousser found, "They disfranchised these whites as willingly as they deprived blacks of

5060-414: The constitutions of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Virginia election rules. Oklahoma and other states quickly reacted by passing laws that created other rules for voter registration that worked against blacks and minorities. Oklahoma did not have a Republican governor until Henry Bellmon was elected in 1962 , though Republicans were still able to draw over 40% of the vote statewide during

5152-485: The county had 15 lynchings of African Americans from 1877 to 1950, most in the decades near the turn of the 20th century. This was the third-highest of any county in the state. To escape the violence and oppression, thousands of African Americans left the state in the Great Migration to northern and western cities, especially after 1940. Mechanization of farming and industrial-scale agriculture have decreased

5244-549: The county was $ 10,983. About 24.70% of families and 29.90% of the population were below the poverty line , including 38.80% of those under age 18 and 27.60% of those age 65 or over. The East Arkansas Regional Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction is in Lee County. The Lee County Courthouse in located in the town of Marianna, which is the county seat. Since World War II, Lee County has voted for

5336-410: The county. As of the 2010 United States Census , there were 10,424 people living in the county. 55.3% were Black or African American , 42.0% White , 0.5% Native American , 1.6% were Hispanic or Latino (of any race), 0.4% Asian , 0.7% of some other race and 1.2% of two or more races . As of the 2000 United States Census , there were 12,580 people, 4,182 households, and 2,960 families living in

5428-493: The county. The population density was 21 people per square mile (8.1 people/km ). There were 4,768 housing units at an average density of 8 units per square mile (3.1 units/km ). The racial makeup of the county was 57.24% Black or African American , 41.41% White , 2.19% Hispanic or Latino of any race, 0.27% Asian , 0.16% Native American , 0.52% from other races , and 0.40% from two or more races. There were 4,182 households, out of which 31.20% had children under

5520-539: The divisions of a county. Each township includes unincorporated areas; some may have incorporated cities or towns within part of their boundaries. Arkansas townships have limited purposes in modern times. However, the United States census does list Arkansas population based on townships (sometimes referred to as "county subdivisions" or "minor civil divisions"). Townships are also of value for historical purposes in terms of genealogical research. Each town or city

5612-527: The educational qualification as the only means left to us, and the negro is as contented and as prosperous and as well protected in South Carolina to-day as in any State of the Union south of the Potomac. He is not meddling with politics, for he found that the more he meddled with them the worse off he got. As to his “rights”—I will not discuss them now. We of the South have never recognized the right of

SECTION 60

#1732782866535

5704-464: The election in 1897 of George Henry White to Congress, as a member of the House of Representatives. At the 1898 election, the Democrats ran on White Supremacy and disfranchisement in a bitter race-baiting campaign led by Furnifold McLendel Simmons and Josephus Daniels , editor and publisher of The Raleigh News & Observer . The Republican/Populist coalition disintegrated, and the Democrats won

5796-428: The former Confederate States, Delaware voted for the Republican Party in a majority of presidential elections from 1876 to 1964 (12 out of 23). Delaware voted for the Democratic Party presidential candidate from 1876 to 1892, but then consistently voted for the Republican Party presidential candidate from 1896 to 1932, except in 1912 for Woodrow Wilson when the Republican Party split. The allegiance of industries with

5888-494: The governorship for eight of the next nine terms, and electing 82 of 106 U.S. Representatives until 1932. West Virginia had a relatively low percentage of African Americans from 1870 to 1960, comprising between 4% to 7% of the state's population. In 1932, as the nation swung to the Democrats, West Virginia again became solidly Democratic. It was perhaps the most reliably Democratic state in the nation between 1932 and 1996, being one of just two states (along with Minnesota) to vote for

5980-424: The last vote being the most decisive. The existence of substantial Italian immigration completely absent from the former Confederate states meant that these immigrants were exposed to the possibility of disfranchisement, but much more critically allowed for much stronger resistance amongst the white population. The Democrat-dominated state legislature tried to pass disfranchising bills in 1905, 1907, and 1911, but

6072-524: The leadership of the national Democratic Party. During the Great Depression , legislation establishing numerous national social programs were passed without the representation of African Americans , leading to gaps in program coverage and discrimination against them in operations. In addition, because black Southerners were not listed on local voter rolls, they were automatically excluded from serving in local courts . Juries were all white across

6164-555: The legislature proposed the Digges Amendment to the state constitution. It would have used property requirements to effectively disenfranchise many African American men as well as many poor white men (including new immigrants). The Maryland General Assembly passed the bill, which Governor Austin Lane Crothers supported. Before the measure went to popular vote, a bill was proposed that would have effectively passed

6256-485: The majority of its soldiers to the Union. The prospect of those returning ex-Confederates prompted the Wheeling state government to implement laws that restricted their right of suffrage, practicing law and teaching, access to the legal system, and subjected them to "war trespass" lawsuits. The lifting of these restrictions in 1871 resulted in the election of John J. Jacob , a Democrat, to the governorship. It also led to

6348-503: The mid-1870s. The insurgent Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was formed in 1865 in Tennessee (as a backlash to defeat in the war) and it quickly became a powerful secret vigilante group, with chapters across the South. The Klan initiated a campaign of intimidation directed against blacks and sympathetic whites. Their violence included vandalism and destruction of property, physical attacks and assassinations, and lynchings . Teachers who came from

6440-462: The most "consistently competitive political system in the South". A bitter election battle in 1888, marked by unmatched corruption and violence, resulted in white Democrats taking over the state legislature. To consolidate their power, they worked to suppress the black vote and sharply reduced it through changes in voter registration, requiring poll taxes , as well as changing election procedures to make voting more complex. In 1890, Mississippi adopted

6532-504: The need for workers. The rural county has continued to lose population because of the lack of work opportunities. There has been a decrease in population every decade since 1940. According to the U.S. Census Bureau , the county has a total area of 620 square miles (1,600 km ), of which 603 square miles (1,560 km ) is land and 17 square miles (44 km ) (2.7%) is water. As of the 2020 United States Census , there were 8,600 people, 3,206 households, and 1,994 families residing in

6624-463: The negro to govern white men, and we never will.... I would to God the last one of them was in Africa and that none of them had ever been brought to our shores. The disfranchisement of a large proportion of voters attracted the attention of Congress, and as early as 1900 some members proposed stripping the South of seats, related to the number of people who were barred from voting. Apportionment of seats

6716-694: The party nominee. In the South by this time, the Republican Party had been hollowed out by the disfranchisement of African Americans, who were mostly excluded from voting. Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected as the first southern President since 1848. He was re-elected in 1916, in a much closer presidential contest. During his first term, Wilson satisfied the request of Southerners in his cabinet and instituted overt racial segregation throughout federal government workplaces, as well as racial discrimination in hiring. During World War I , American military forces were segregated, with black soldiers poorly trained and equipped. Disfranchisement had far-reaching effects in

6808-628: The political system. The disenfranchisement of poor whites was not merely an unintentional byproduct of laws intended to prevent blacks from voting, because many supporters of disenfranchisement explicitly stated a desire to also prevent poor whites from voting. Senator and former South Carolina Governor Benjamin Tillman defended this on the floor of the Senate: In my State there were 135,000 negro voters, or negroes of voting age, and some 90,000 or 95,000 white voters... Now, I want to ask you, with

6900-575: The polls and ensuring a white Democratic takeover of legislatures and governorships in most Southern states in the 1870s, most notoriously during the controversial 1876 elections . As a result of a national Compromise of 1877 arising from the 1876 presidential election, the federal government withdrew its military forces from the South, formally ending the Reconstruction era. By that time, Southern Democrats had effectively regained control in Louisiana , South Carolina , and Florida – they identified as

6992-477: The populations of Missouri and West Virginia were African American. In Kentucky, 5-20% of the state's population was African American. In Delaware, 10-20% of the state's population was African American. In Maryland, 15-25% of the state's population was African American. Despite Delaware not abolishing slavery until the ratification of the 13th amendment, due its proximity to the Northeast and not bordering any of

7084-449: The rate of white illiteracy in the South at that time was 31 percent. Some states used grandfather clauses to exempt white voters from literacy tests altogether. Other states required otherwise eligible black voters to meet literacy and knowledge requirements to the satisfaction of white registrars, who applied subjective judgment and, in the process, rejected most black voters. By 1900, the majority of blacks were literate, but even many of

7176-509: The rejection of the war-time constitution by public vote and a new constitution written under the leadership of ex-Confederates such as Samuel Price , Allen T. Caperton and Charles James Faulkner . In 1876 the state Democratic ticket of eight candidates were all elected, seven of whom were Confederate veterans. For nearly a generation West Virginia was part of the Solid South. However, Republicans returned to power in 1896, controlling

7268-474: The same term This disambiguation page lists articles about distinct geographical locations with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Texas_Township&oldid=1189761575 " Categories : Place name disambiguation pages Township name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

7360-637: The segregation of federal facilities in the District of Columbia, which had been integrated during Reconstruction. With a population evenly divided between races, in 1896 there were 130,334 black voters on the Louisiana registration rolls and about the same number of whites. Louisiana State legislators passed a new constitution in 1898 that included requirements for applicants to pass a literacy test in English or his native language in order to register to vote or to certify owning $ 300 worth of property, known as

7452-537: The state constitutions almost eliminated black voting. Although nothing approaching precise data exists, it is estimated that in the late 1930s, less than one percent of blacks in the Deep South and around five percent in the Rim South were registered to vote, and that the proportion voting even in general elections, which were of no consequence due to complete Democratic dominance, was much smaller still. Secondly,

7544-571: The states. At the same time, by 1870 all Southern states had dropped enforcement of disfranchisement of ex-Confederates except Arkansas, where disfranchisement of ex-Confederates was dropped in the aftermath of the Brooks-Baxter War in 1874. White supremacist paramilitary organizations, allied with Southern Democrats, used intimidation, violence, and even committed assassinations to repress blacks and prevent them from exercising their civil and political rights in elections from 1868 until

7636-724: The violence. In 1870, the strongly Republican Congress passed the Enforcement Acts , imposing penalties for conspiracy to deny black suffrage. The Acts empowered the President to deploy the armed forces to suppress organizations that deprived people of rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment . Organizations whose members appeared in arms were considered in rebellion against the United States. The President could suspend habeas corpus under those circumstances. President Grant used these provisions in parts of

7728-663: The vote by most blacks and, often, many poor whites; voter rolls dropped across the South into the new century. Florida approved a new constitution in 1885 that included provisions for poll taxes as a prerequisite for voter registration and voting. From 1890 to 1908, ten of the eleven Southern states rewrote their constitutions. All included provisions that effectively restricted voter registration and suffrage, including requirements for poll taxes, increased residency, and subjective literacy tests . With educational improvements, blacks had markedly increased their rate of literacy. By 1891, their illiteracy had declined to 58 percent, while

7820-607: The vote." Perman noted the goals of disfranchisement resulted from several factors. Competition between white elites and white lower classes, for example, and a desire to prevent alliances between lower-class white and black Americans, as had been seen in Populist-Republican alliances, led white Democratic legislators to restrict voter rolls. With the passage of new constitutions, Southern states adopted provisions that caused disfranchisement of large portions of their populations by skirting US constitutional protections of

7912-478: The white population in Louisiana, and represented more than 40 percent of the population in four other former Confederate states. In addition, the Reconstruction Acts and state Reconstruction constitutions and laws barred many ex-Confederate Southern whites from holding office and, in some states, disenfranchised them unless they took a loyalty oath . Southern whites, fearing black domination, resisted

8004-501: Was devastating; by 1900 black voters were reduced from 130,334 to 5,320 on the rolls. By 1910, only 730 blacks were registered, less than 0.5% of eligible black men. "In 27 of the state's sixty parishes, not a single black voter was registered any longer; in nine more parishes, only one black voter was." In 1894, a coalition of Republicans and the Populist Party won control of the North Carolina state legislature (and with it,

8096-659: Was established by the state legislature on April 17, 1873, during the Reconstruction era . It was named for General Robert E. Lee , who served as General in Chief of the Armies of the Confederate States during the American Civil War . The area of the Delta was developed largely for cotton as a commodity crop before the Civil War, based on the labor of enslaved African Americans. It continued as an important crop into

8188-455: Was overruled by the Supreme Court in the early 20th century, states quickly devised new methods of excluding most blacks from voting, such as the white primary . Democratic Party primaries became the only competitive contests in southern states. For the national Democratic Party, the alignment after Reconstruction resulted in a powerful Southern region that was useful for congressional clout. Nevertheless, before President Franklin D. Roosevelt ,

8280-430: Was rebuffed on each occasion, in large part because of black opposition and strength. Black men comprised 20% of the electorate and had established themselves in several cities, where they had comparative security. In addition, immigrant men comprised 15% of the voting population and opposed these measures. The legislature had difficulty devising requirements against blacks that did not also disadvantage immigrants. In 1910,

8372-455: Was still based on total population (with the assumption of the usual number of voting males in relation to the residents); as a result, white Southerners commanded many seats far out of proportion to the voters they represented. In the end, Congress did not act on this issue, as the Southern bloc of Democrats had sufficient power to reject or stall such action. For decades, white Southern Democrats exercised Congressional representation derived from

8464-420: Was the complete elimination of black voters from voter rolls by 1904. Contemporary accounts estimated that seventy-five thousand black male citizens lost the vote. In 1900 blacks numbered 630,207 citizens, about 33% of the state's total population. The growth of the thriving black middle class was slowed. In North Carolina and other Southern states, there were also the insidious effects of invisibility: "[w]ithin

#534465