Vol. 14 No. 2 (February 2004)
A VOTING RIGHTS ODYSSEY: BLACK ENFRANCHISEMENT IN GEORGIA by Laughlin McDonald. NY, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
254 pp. Cloth $45. ISBN: 0-521-81232-1.
Paper $16.99. ISBN:
0-521-01179-5.
Reviewed by Maruice Mangum, Department of Political Science,
Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. Email: maruman@siue.edu.
A VOTING RIGHTS ODYSSEY is a chronicle of the struggle
undertaken by African Americans to achieve their constitutional right to
vote in Georgia. In this book,
Laughlin McDonald relies on court testimony, court records, export reports,
and interviews with trial participants.
The author was a part of this journey, for he is an attorney who
specializes in voting rights and has been the director of the Southern Regional
Office of the American Civil Liberties Union since 1972, and this allows
him to offer a unique perspective and treatment on history. In fact, McDonald has tried a number of voting rights cases.
The book focuses on Georgia's experience with racial discrimination
in voting from slavery to the present. The United States Constitution advanced the notion that African
Americans are three-fifths of a person, and so their right to vote could
be curtailed until the passage of the Civil War Amendments. The former Confederate states fought to
keep alive the slave trade and circumvented the Thirteenth, Fourteenth,
and Fifteenth Amendments. McDonald
argues that Georgia's history is indicative of other states that seceded
from the Union prior to the Civil War, but the Peach State is unique in
its determination to restrict voting and office-holding by African Americans. He contends there are a number of advantages
to focusing on one state as opposed to several. By concentrating on Georgia, the South's
biggest offender of equal voting rights, among other reasons, he is able
to spotlight the prominence of race across history in the political process
and in decision making.
Interestingly, A VOTING RIGHTS ODYSSEY begins in Chapter
1 with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and President Johnson's efforts to
make voting free and equal to all citizens, including a discussion of those
individuals and groups who opposed it and their reasons why. Chapter Two addresses the variety of amendments
the Georgia constitution adopted beginning in 1777. Georgia's first constitution restricted
the franchise to white males who were at least twenty-one years old, and
also limited voting to "citizens and inhabitants." The latter provision obviously excluded African Americans because
they were not nor allowed to become citizens.
This chapter also discusses Reconstruction legislation
designed to extend the franchise to African Americans. African Americans were registered to vote
under supervision by the federal government; however extension of voting
rights met resistance, for whites did not want them to exercise their right.
Subsequently, the KKK visited extreme violence against African Americans,
and the state legislature enacted laws that made it impossible for blacks
to meet voting eligibility requirements.
More restrictions were added at the constitutional convention of
1877. McDonald also discusses the efforts by various Georgia governors
to support white supremacy.
Chapter Three presents more accounts of intimidation at
polling places, more difficult literacy tests, and other methods of subverting
voting rights. In some counties,
the African-American population represented a majority, but only a very
small percentage was registered to vote, and in others, they were prohibited
from voting altogether. McDonald
reports on lynching and related harassment and intimidation aimed at depressing
the willingness to vote.
However, the tide eventually turned. Indeed, the courts declared the "white"
or "whites only" primary unconstitutional. Soon thereafter, the voting age was lowered and the poll tax
abolished. As a result of these
changes, voter registration by African Americans increased dramatically.
In Chapter Four McDonald considers congressional civil
rights action and the reactions in Georgia in 1956. The federal guidelines were ignored and disobeyed, and the
state political leaders were determined to maintain the "purity" of the
white race. The state levied
fines on citizens who participated in or performed interracial marriage
and made the "good citizenship" test more difficult to pass to minimize
the number of African-American voters.
Chapter Five addresses the federal courts' invalidation
of Georgia's county unit system and legislative districts. Under the unit system, counties could
assign up to twice as many unit votes as representatives in the House of
Representatives. In GRAY v.
SANDERS (1963) the U.S. Supreme Court coined the phrase "one person, one
vote," declaring the county unit system to be unconstitutional, for it denied
equal voting power. In TOOMBS
v. FORTSON (1965), the Court struck down Georgia's legislative apportionment
plans on similar grounds.
Revising Georgia's election laws was the focus of Chapter
Six. Replacing the county unit
system were primary elections, run-off elections, and plurality or majority
vote. The results of the 1963 deliberations by the ELSC was a numbered-post
provision, a majority-vote requirement, a literacy test as a precondition
for registering to vote, and more stringent (and clearly discriminatory)
"character" and "understanding" tests.
In Chapter Seven, McDonald reports on the mass mobilization efforts
of several groups including the NAACP, SCLC, SNCC, and Core, and he discusses
how efforts to register African Americans to vote were met with violence
and terror.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is the subject of Chapter
Eight. Chapter Nine reviews
how Georgia ignored Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and how many counties
initiated at-large elections to dilute African-American votes. Chapters Ten and Eleven are about the reaction of Congress
to Georgia's outright and explicit defiance, and the responses of county
and city governments in Georgia to Congress' extension and expansion of
the Voting Rights Act.
Chapter Twelve addresses more recent redistricting activities,
spotlighting Georgia's Fifth District, which is majority African-American. In this chapter, McDonald discusses city
and county redistricting plans following the 1980 Census and the county's
many attempts to further diminish African-American voting. Chapter Thirteen reviews the responses
of a number of voting rights lawyers and activists to "recent" Supreme Court
decisions, amendments to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and
expansion of Section 4.
McDonald addresses litigation against at-large elections
in Chapter Fourteen. The Courts
ruled that district systems were to be instituted for all jurisdictions. McDonald also notes that Georgia's election
commissioner has never been a minority. The account in Chapter Fifteen finds that, even after the passage
of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and several amendments and extensions,
challenges to voter registration by African Americans persisted and many
counties and cities continued to violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In Chapter Sixteen, McDonald reports on the efforts of
African-American leaders to challenge the legality of the statewide majority-vote
requirement and the outcome of these challenges. In Chapter Seventeen, discussion centers
on the number of African Americans in Georgia's state legislature, redistricting
plans to increase the representation of African Americans in the state's
assembly, and resistance among whites to such changes. McDonald ends his book with an analysis
of Keysville, Georgia, and the trials and tribulations the city has experienced
since it was chartered.
A VOTING RIGHTS ODYSSEY offers a wealth of information
and historical facts in its eighteen chapters. Its comprehensiveness and attention to detail makes it useful
for classes on voting and elections, the civil rights and the civil rights
movement, constitutional law, and history. Moreover, given its rich variety of sources, the book might
be used for a social science methods course. Although it does not provide a systematic analysis of data,
it does offer the reader useful examples of using historical accounts, interviews,
reports, and other biographical information.
CASE REFERENCES:
GRAY v. SANDERS, 372 U.S. 368 (1963).
TOOMBS v. FORTSON, 379 U.S. 809 (1965)
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Copyright 2004 by the author, Maruice Mangum.