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Materials in the Library of Virginia’s collections contain historical terms, phrases, and images that are offensive to modern readers. These include demeaning and dehumanizing references to race, ethnicity, and nationality; enslaved or free status; physical and mental ability; and gender and sexual orientation.
Context
From late in the 19th century until the middle of the 1960s, Virginia's white authorities tried to keep Black citizens from full participation in government and society. The Virginia state constitution adopted in 1902 reinstituted a poll tax as a prerequisite to being able to vote. The poll tax, which accrued every three years, kept many Black citizens--and white--from voting if they could not afford to pay the tax. This was designed to affect Black citizens because they tended to receive less pay for their work as a result of economic prejudice. Even after the ratification in 1964 of the 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which eliminated the use of poll taxes in federal election, Virginia still employed poll taxes in state elections.
The final elimination of Virginia's poll taxes was in part due to the efforts of Evelyn Thomas Butts, a 41-year-old Black community activist. The mother of three and grandmother was married to a disabled veteran and worked as a seamstress to support her family. In November 1963, Evelyn T. Butts and her attorney Joseph A. Jordan Jr. filed the first suit in a federal court seeking to have the state poll tax declared unconstitutional. She argued that the poll tax put an unfair financial burden on citizens in the exercise of their constitutional rights of citizenship, which violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. In March 1964, Annie E. Harper and a group of people from Fairfax County filed a similar federal suit against the poll tax. The two cases were later combined. On March 24, 1966, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the combined cases called Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections that the use of a poll tax in all elections was a violation of the U.S. Constitution. The decision ended the use of the poll tax in Virginia. A provision in Virginia constitution adopted in 1971 explicitly prohibits requiring payment of a poll tax as a prerequisite to be able to vote.
Butts's victory made the headlines of the Norfolk newspaper, the Virginian-Pilot.
Citation: "Victor Expects Another Fight," Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk), March 25, 1966, Library of Virginia.
Related Document Bank entry:
Honor Dr. King, Broadside, 1970
Learn more about Evelyn T. Butts in her Dictionary of Virginia Biography entry online at Encyclopedia Virginia.
Standards
Suggested Questions
Preview Activity
Using Context Clues: Quickly look through the article, what word or phrases stand out to you? List five. What do those words or phrases tell you about the subject of the document?
Post Activities
Current Connections: What challenges and changes are being made today that may impact voting rights?
Social Media Spin: If reporters had been on social media in 1966, how might this article and issue have been presented? Create a social media post reflecting how you would have presented it at that time.
Virginia Validation: Why do you think it took a legal case that reached the Supreme Court to change the law requiring a poll tax? How did the changes to the state law reflect the Supreme Court decision and the US Constitution?