The Right to Vote

The Right to Vote. March Route to Government. Another strategy of “Project C” was voter registration for Birmingham Blacks. At the time, only 12,000 of 150,000 voting-age African-Americans in Jefferson County could vote. White state and local officials used such methods as reading tests and asking difficult constitutional questions to prevent many Blacks from registering to vote. They also imposed a poll tax, which made Blacks pay to vote. The expense of this poll tax was often beyond the means of many Blacks who were poor. These are some of the methods that those in power used to limit the power of the Black vote. , Paired marker , April 17, 1963 , On this date, one of "Project C's" marches to government was to the Jefferson County Courthouse to register a group of African-American women as voters. This copy of a poll tax receipt (almost one year later) shows the $1.50 that one Black Birmingham citizen paid for the privilege to vote in local elections. Due to decades of unfair voting practices, Blacks found it difficult to increase their eligible voting numbers. After many successful Black voter registration drives, there were finally enough registered Black voters to help kick “Bull” Connor out of office in 1963. , "The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice." , President Lyndon B. Johnson , August 1965, Lesson A12: List the methods used to keep Blacks from voting.