A literacy test, in a strict sense, is a test designed to determine one's ability to read and write a given language. The term is often used, however, to refer to a test given to determine one's eligibility to vote. Jump to: navigation, search Voting is a method of decision making wherein a group such as a meeting or an electorate attempts to gauge its opinion—usually as a final step following discussions or debates. ...

Literacy requirements for voting are almost as old as the concept of voting is itself. The theoretical basis for them was that illiterate persons were not sufficiently informed about the candidates and issues involved to be able to make a truly informed decision. In practice, however, the literacy requirement was often used to prevent those determined by the ruling class to be undesirable, such as the poor, racial and ethnic minorities, and other groups that it wished to see disenfranchised, from voting.

The literacy test became of prime importance when the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in the wake of the American Civil War. This amendment forbade any state from forbidding any male citizen aged twenty-one or over from voting on the basis of race. It did not, however, prevent the implementation of other qualifications for voting. Since few whites in the Southern United States in that era desired blacks to vote, the literacy test was frequently used to deny them this right. Most blacks had been kept illiterate as a consequence of slavery. And literacy tests were often administered to blacks unfairly to ensure their failure, even if the black person taking them was in fact literate. Also, whites were often allowed to vote even if they were illiterate, sometimes by the invocation of a grandfather clause which stated that literacy requirements could be waived if a potential voter's grandfather had been a qualified voter, a virtual impossibility for blacks of that era. Contemporary drawing depicting the first vote by African-Americans Amendment XV (the Fifteenth Amendment) of the United States Constitution is one of the post-Civil War, Reconstruction amendments. ... Jump to: navigation, search Page I of the Constitution of the United States of America Page II of the United States Constitution Page III of the United States Constitution Page IV of the United States Constitution The Syng inkstand, with which the Constitution was signed The Constitution of the United... Jump to: navigation, search The American Civil War (1861–1865) was fought in North America within the United States of America, between twenty-three mostly northern states of the Union and the Confederate States of America, a coalition of eleven southern states that declared their independence and claimed the right... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Southern United States or the South constitute a distinctive region covering a large portion of the United States. ... The term Blacks is often used in the West to denote race for persons whose progenitors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Sub-Saharan Africa. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Buxton Memorial Fountain, celebrating the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire in 1834, London. ... Jump to: navigation, search A grandfather clause is an exception, originating from the United States, that allows a pre-existing rule to remain as it is despite a change in the rules applied to newer situations. ...

Literacy tests for voting were banned by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and now laws require the printing of ballots in languages other than English in areas where there are high concentrations of non-English-speaking voters, and arrangements are made to assist the illiterate in voting. Literacy tests for voting in the United States thus no longer exist. The United States Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed requiring would-be voters to take literacy tests and provided for federal registration of African American voters in areas that had less than 50% of eligible voters registered. ...