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A near impossible literacy test Louisiana used to suppress the black vote

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319 points rcarmo | 1 comments | 21 Oct 24 21:29 UTC | HN request time: 0.259s | source
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nneonneo ◴[21 Oct 24 23:35 UTC] No.41909665[source]▶
Note: there are questions about this test's authenticity. Per a note on https://www.crmvet.org/info/la-test.htm:

> [NOTE: At one time we also displayed a "brain-twister" type literacy test with questions like "Spell backwards, forwards" that may (or may not) have been used during the summer of 1964 in Tangipahoa Parish (and possibly elsewhere) in Louisiana. We removed it because we could not corroborate its authenticity, and in any case it was not representative of the Louisiana tests in broad use during the 1950s and '60s.]

Each parish in Louisiana implemented their own literacy tests, which means that there wasn't really much uniformity in the process. Another (maybe more typical) test: https://www.crmvet.org/info/la-littest2.pdf

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anonnon ◴[22 Oct 24 04:02 UTC] No.41911081[source]▶
This one seems deliberately difficult to answer correctly, even with the requisite civics knowledge:

> The President of the Senate gets his office

> a. by election by the people.

> b. by election by the Senate.

> c. by appointment by the President.

The Vice President is the President of the Senate, but the duties are typically exercised (save the tie-breaking vote) by the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, a Senator chosen by whichever party currently has a majority. It seems both a. and b. could be considered correct.

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silisili ◴[22 Oct 24 04:22 UTC] No.41911172[source]▶
I'd argue even C could be seen as correct. The president chooses his running mate, after all.
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kadoban ◴[22 Oct 24 04:52 UTC] No.41911301[source]▶
C is also literally what happens if a new VP is needed for any reason (needs to get confirmed by Congress though).
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dragonwriter ◴[22 Oct 24 17:06 UTC] No.41916338[source]▶
The Amendment making (c) correct in some circumstances was passed in 1967, so presumably would not be referenced by a test written before that date.
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kadoban ◴[23 Oct 24 01:09 UTC] No.41920557[source]▶
Good point. I was trying to look up what the procedure was for replacing a VP before that, but failed. It almost must have been done at least once before then right? I couldn't recall or find though.
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1. dragonwriter ◴[23 Oct 24 03:27 UTC] No.41921488[source]▶
There was, in fact, no procedure for replacing the VP; the move for the amendment to correct that came about after, and motivated largely by, the Kennedy assassination and the vacancy in the term Johnson completed; historically, vacancies in the Vice Presidency hadn't been considered important enough to do something about, but the Cold War changed that.