"An Open Letter Addressed by Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee, Ala. to the Louisiana Constitutional Convention, February 19th, 1898."
In the letter Washington urges the Louisiana legislature not to adopt measures that would unfairly disenfranchise African Americans while allowing similarly unqualified white men to vote: "The Negro does not object to an educational or property test, but let the law be so clear that no one clo...
| Format: | Electronic |
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| Published: |
Alabama Department of Archives and History
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| Online Access: | http://cdm17217.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/voices/id/6606 |
| Summary: | In the letter Washington urges the Louisiana legislature not to adopt measures that would unfairly disenfranchise African Americans while allowing similarly unqualified white men to vote: "The Negro does not object to an educational or property test, but let the law be so clear that no one clothed with State authority will be tempted to perjure and degrade himself, by putting one interpretation upon it for the white man and another for the black man." Louisiana passed a "grandfather clause" in 1898 that exempted men from literacy and property requirements if they (or their fathers or grandfathers) had been qualified to vote in 1867. |
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