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November 24, 2024

Profound Achievements Would be Short-lived

The expansion of rights won during Reconstruction was met with swift rejection by white Southerners, resulting in widespread voter suppression and violence against people who were formerly enslaved. Poll taxes and other methods of disenfranchisement lasted for decades.

A Black woman wearing a coat, gloves, and a hat stands in front of a building with several large columns

Evelyn Butts, a civil rights activist and politician from Norfolk, challenged the poll tax and took her case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1966. The case became part of Harper v. Virginia State Board of Election, which declared poll taxes unconstitutional in Virginia.

Kathy Mendes

kathy@thecommonwealthinstitute.org

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