Back in the Days of the Poll Tax

As one does in these days of modern times, I recently wandered through the online riches at the Smithsonian Institution web pages. The Alabama resources there are numerous, and this time I came across the poll tax payment certificate seen below.

Along with literacy tests, property or residency requirements, U.S. poll taxes were one of the methods used to prevent African Americans from voting beginning in the last quarter of the 19th century. After the Fifteenth Amendment enabled the right to vote for African Americans, a number of states enacted poll tax laws as a legal method to restrict voting rights. The poll tax was especially effective in disenfranchising potential black voters since African Americans made up a disproportionate number of the poor who could not afford to pay. Of course, a number of poor whites were also affected. 

This certificate is evidence that Alice Irby, a resident of Selma, paid the tax on January 29, 1966. An examiner from the U.S. Civil Service Commission certified the document. Voter registration for blacks in Dallas County had been problematic for decades. In 1958 the Commission met in Montgomery and took testimony about problems faced by blacks trying to register to vote in the state. At that time 130 of 15,115 eligible blacks in Dallas County were registered. 

In going through mom's house in Huntsville, my brother Richard and I have recently discovered five family documents that are related to this topic. See them below with comments. 

Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift from the Family of Alice Irby

Here is dad's voter registration on July 19, 1948, in Etowah County. His residency address given, 1113 Chandler Street in East Gadsden, was his parents house, and one I visited many times before my grandmother Rosa Mae Wright died in 1997. At some point the house number changed to 1313; that's the only one I remember. You can see the house in this blog post. Dad returned home from his U.S. Navy service on July 10, so he didn't wait long to register. 

The back of the certificate outlines the extensive requirements for voting: two years' residency in the state, one in the county, and at least three months in the precinct prior to the election. The potential voter also had to register and pay the poll tax. 

This poll tax receipt from Etowah County dated October 25, 1948, is apparently for my grandfather. He served in U.S. Army briefly at the very end of World War I.

 

After dad finished his naval service, he returned to Auburn to finish his education. That's where he and mom met and were married in 1950. After he graduated, the couple moved to Gadsden and lived there for a few years. Then dad got a U.S. civil service job with the army in Huntsville. This registration certificate in Madison County, dated November 11, 1955, shows their first Huntsville address, 150 Redstone Park. That neighborhood was former military housing turned to civilian use after World War II. 

Here is the certificate for dad's poll tax exemption allowed by his military service. 

Mom registered to vote in Huntsville the same day as dad.