North Carolina’s literacy test requirement for voting, a relic of the Jim Crow era, remains enshrined in our state Constitution. Although unenforceable due to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, its presence symbolizes a past marred by racial discrimination and voter suppression. During the past few legislative sessions, the Republican-led legislature has attempted to get a constitutional amendment repealing the literacy test through the chambers, but it has not materialized.
In the new Carolina Journal poll, just 40% of respondents would support an amendment to repeal the requirement, with 38% opposing it. That is a surprisingly tight margin.
My colleagues and I at Carolina Journal debated this week, digging through the data, why so few people would support repealing the requirement. It could be that respondents believed that because it was not enforceable, an amendment was unnecessary. It could also be that people don’t know the history of the literacy test. It could also mean that people believe literacy should be a requirement for voting.
It is important to know the history. North Carolina’s literacy test was implemented in 1900 and was accompanied by a “grandfather clause,” which exempted voters from the test if their grandfathers voted before 1867, the end of the Civil War.
The literacy requirement was part of a broader strategy to disenfranchise black voters, alongside poll taxes and other measures. It was introduced just two years after the Wilmington Coup in November of 1898, the only coup d’etat to occur on United States soil. The violence was the culmination of a months-long campaign by the Democratic Party to retake control of the local government. Spearheaded by eventual North Carolina Gov. Charles Aycock, the effort was known, in their own description, as a “white-supremacy campaign.”
On that dark day in North Carolina’s history, mobs of white supremacists in Wilmington overthrew the local government, including black elected officials, and burned the only black-owned newspaper in town. Illustrated in the John Locke Foundation documentary In the Pines, the key players and violence in the Wilmington coup paved the way for the state’s voting literacy test.
In recent years, multiple bipartisan attempts have been made to remove the literacy test from the state Constitution. Bills introduced in 2013, 2018, and 2021 failed to pass the state Senate despite broad support in the House. This year, House Bill 44 proposed a constitutional amendment to repeal the literacy test and passed the North Carolina House in June. However, the state legislature adjourned without final passage.
“The literacy test was used to strip the voting rights of black North Carolinians,” Andy Jackson, director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity for the John Locke Foundation, told lawmakers last year during a legislative committee hearing on a repeal.
Jackson warned legislators that “passing this repeal is not a slam dunk,” noting that an amendment to repeal the literacy test was put on the state’s 1970 election ballot and failed.
Today, in the contentious 2024 electoral environment, this issue can potentially unite or divide North Carolinians. While repeal is still symbolic, its bipartisan support in the state legislature shows that we can come together and put history to rest. Alternatively, partisan groups bent on igniting tensions could use the issue as a wedge. The John Locke Foundation, publisher of the Carolina Journal, has encouraged lawmakers to put a repeal on a primary or midterm ballot to avoid it becoming a political football.
“I would urge all of the folks here, including my brothers and sisters in the nonprofit community, to avoid using repeal as a political bludgeon,” Jackson told lawmakers during last year’s hearing. “There’s a temptation, I think, to try to use any tool you can to attack your opponents in an upcoming election, and if this is used as one of those tools, you could inadvertently drive support [for repeal] down.”
Repealing the literacy test is not just about removing an unenforceable law; it is about ensuring that our state Constitution reflects the values of transparency and fairness we strive to uphold today. The literacy test’s continued presence in our Constitution undermines our progress, and repealing it transcends partisan politics. It’s a chance to show that we are committed to a secure, fair electoral system where every citizen’s ballot is cast and protected with integrity.