Mandia 1

Melissa Mandia

Garabedian and Rosen

Race in America

9 May 2017

Institutionalized Disenfranchisement as Racial Marginalization

The liberty promoted through American freedom relies on the unalienable right to vote,

guaranteed to all citizens. But what if this right was striped from millions throughout the years,

namely from people of color? The disenfranchisement of black people throughout our history

exposes a major contradiction to American freedom. The book Blood at the Root by Patrick

Phillips documents the corruption found within Americas criminal justice system with a focus

on Forsyth County, Georgia during post-Reconstruction. The Jim Crow era preceded

Reconstruction and again we see institutionalized corruption at the expense of disenfranchising

black people; this is demonstrated through the struggles experienced by Rosa Parks, as

chronicalized in The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis. We continue to

see black people losing the right to vote in sweeping numbers today. Michelle Alexander

expertly exposes the current injustices experienced in modern society in The New Jim Crow:

Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. The longstanding history of disenfranchising

the black population exposes a contradiction to American values of freedom and democracy and

can only be explained as an institutionalized method of oppressing an entire race.

The institutionalized racism demonstrated in Forsyth County, Georgia clearly exemplifies

the multitude of ways that white people held more power than black people sheerly because they

had the right to vote. This power embodies itself in a variety of ways. One example is that the
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black people of Forsyth, County were not guaranteed their right to a fair and speedy trial. Rather

it was not uncommon for a jury to be comprised of entirely white men who were more than

likely white supremacists.1 Whites also demonstrated their power through mob violence. Lynch

mobs targeting black men was not unique to Forsyth County: when leaders of the mob emerged

from the jail with a black man, they were cheered by thousands of whites who had rushed into

town in hopes of witnessing exactly such a spectacle.2 Whites could exude this level of elation

and confidence because they did not fear any repercussions, after all the elected officials were

likely as racist as the aggressors. Another major way that whites demonstrated their dominance

in Forsyth was by permanently driving the black population out of the county without feeling

any repercussions.3 Not only did they expel their black neighbors, they assumed the land as their

own, further exerting their power in a system rigged against the black community.4 Even the

white members of the community who did not agree with this aggression still benefited from the

power of enfranchisement by their ability to write to their governor expressing their concern and

pleading assistance against racial tensions. In one letter, a white citizen requested that Governor

Brown arrest the aggressors but Brown assured that this was an issue that could be dealt with on

the local level.5 Unfortunately Sheriff Reid, the local leadership, was the winner of the white

supremacists votes and would later join the Klan.6 When it became clear that Forsyths racial

hatred was an institutionalized method of oppression the last of the blacks white allies left the

town disheartened.7 Forsyth County is not a unique case study in regards of institutionalized

1
Patrick Phillips, Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America, 92.
2
Patrick Phillips, Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America, 50,
3
Patrick Phillips, Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America, 77.
4
Ibid.
5
Patrick Phillips, Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America, 113.
6
Patrick Phillips, Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America, 47.
7
Patrick Phillips, Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America, 182.
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racism. This kind of systematic oppression through the disenfranchisement of black people was

experienced nationwide and continued despite civil rights efforts.

Rosa Parks, one of the figureheads of Americas civil rights movement, experienced the

struggles of gaining her deserved right to vote in Montgomery, Alabama. The process to obtain

her enfranchisement came at the cost of her time and money but her tireless spirit persisted. After

three attempts, Rosa Parks passed her literacy test but she was still not technically allowed to

vote; she had to wait for her confirmation in the mail, a step that white voters skipped. Finally

she had to pay a poll tax, $1.50 for each year she had been old enough to vote, $18 in total,

which was a steep price for a black working class family.8 After a tedious process, Rosa Parks

was finally able to cast her vote in 1945. This laborious procedure exemplifies the many ways

the black population was barred from participating in their own government. As a champion of

the system, Parks success was a rarity. According to Theoharis, Montgomery in 1951 was 37

percent black in population, but only 3.7 percent of eligible black voters were registered -- even

Mr. Parks gave up on his efforts to vote after being rejected so frequently.9 Understanding the

value of a vote within a democracy, Parks remained committed to the power of the black vote to

break the back of white supremacy, demonstrating her dedication to ridding America of its

institutionalized methods of oppressing black citizens.10 Ironically, despite her personal struggle

toward enfranchisement, Parks was personally invited to witness President Johnson enact the

Voting Rights Act in 1965.11 However, this does not validate Americas triumph against voter

disenfranchisement and no one understood this better than Parks who continued attending Black

8
Jeanne Theoharis, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, 21.
9
Ibid.
10
Jeanne Theoharis, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, 135.
11
Jeanne Theoharis, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, 203.
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Power events in the late 1960s and 1970s [demonstrating] the limits of those successes and the

larger goals of earlier struggles still unmet.12 Parks would be disappointed to hear that these

larger goals are still widely unaccomplished in 2017.

The similarities in the landscape of voter disenfranchisement between 1945 and today are

dishearteningly predictable. In 1945, Rosa Parks brother, Sylvester, was denied his right to vote

despite his service in World War II.13 In The New Jim Crow, Alexander retells the similar case of

Clinton Drake, a Vietnam veteran, who accepted a plea bargain and once released, Drake found

he was forbidden by law from voting until he paid his $900 in court cases.14 This $900 fine

eerily mirrors the sometimes insurmountable poll taxes that faced the black community in the

1940s -- the poll taxes that Rosa Parks fought strongly against during Voter League meetings.15

Drakes failed attempt to gain enfranchisement after his five years in prison is a struggle

experienced by a large portion of the black community today. And just like in the 1940s, the

government allows this disenfranchisement through loopholes institutionalized in the structure of

the laws. Alexander reports that less than two decades after the War on Drugs began, one in

seven black men nationally had lost the right to vote, and as many as one in four in those states

with the highest African American disenfranchisement rate.16 The high level of

disenfranchisement allowed by failure of our legal system to eradicate all of the tactics adopted

during the Jim Crow era to suppress the black vote in the age of mass incarceration are arguably

even more damaging than those during Jim Crow because marginalizing criminals is acceptable

12
Jeanne Theoharis, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, 203.
13
Jeanne Theoharis, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, 21.
14
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 159.
15
Jeanne Theoharis, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, 21.
16
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 193.
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because they committed a crime that justified their rights being stripped.17 Voter

disenfranchisement is a silent issue in America today but no less present than it was prior to the

Voting Rights Act of 1965. The persistent attempt to disenfranchise an entire race demonstrates

the repeated effort to oppress black people in America and maintain their status as second-level

citizens.

The ruthless oppression of black people in America via disenfranchisement is still

prevalent today in the shape of mass incarceration; in fact more people are refused their right to

vote today than when the Fifteenth Amendment was passed in 1870.18 Alexander expertly

outlines how the method of imprisoning black people in higher numbers than any other race

strips them of their political power and the guaranteed freedom of choice in a democracy. For

example, a criminal defendant who either takes a guilty plea is told that he could be denied the

right to vote.19 Even after being released from prison, the vast majority of states continue to

withhold the right to vote when prisoners are released on parole...for a period ranging from a

number of years to the rest of ones life.20 And if the ex-offender does not resides in a state

where his enfranchisement is inhibited for life, he will likely be expected to pay fines and court

costs, and submit paperwork to multiple agencies in an effort to win back a right that should

never have been taken away in a democracy.21 But these measures are not normal and must not

be normalized if we want to strive toward a world of equality for races; in fact the United

Nations Human rights Committee has charged the U.S. disenfranchisement policies are

17
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 193.
18
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 180.
19
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 142.
20
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 158.
21
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 159.
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discriminatory and violate international law.22 The exhaustive process that Alexander refers to as

the bureaucratic minefields [that] are the modern-day equivalent of poll taxes and literacy tests

are the suffocating force felt from the government down that restricts black citizens from voicing

their political voice and keeping them as inferior to the white leadership that populates the

government.23 All these instances of disenfranchising criminals, namely black ones, demonstrate

how the American government contradicts its foundation of freedom by systematically inhibiting

citizens who are seen as inferior from voting and taking part in the democracy they are entitled

to.

Barring the black population from democracy by restricting their voting rights throughout

U.S. history and today exposes a paradox in the American values and foundations of equality and

freedom. Patrick Phillips exemplifies the ways that systematic disenfranchisement made blacks

inferior by excluding them from their own governments, and how this simultaneously gave

unyielding power to the white community during the early 20th century. In The Rebellious Life

of Mrs. Rosa Parks, Jeanne Theoharis illustrates Parks personal struggle to obtain the right to

vote in a system stacked against her. Finally, Michelle Alexander echos the hollowed power and

struggle to obtain enfranchisement by exposing corruption in the current American government.

Through mass incarceration of black Americans, the government is able to maintain their inferior

status through loopholes in the law. This institutionalized method of marginalizing an entire race

of Americans cannot continue if we wish to live up the the virtues of freedom that America

prides itself in.

22
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 158.
23
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 159.
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Bibliography

Alexander, Michelle. New jim crow: mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New Press,

2016.

Phillips, Patrick. Blood at the Root: a Racial Cleansing in America. New York: W.W. Norton &

Company, 2016.

Theoharis, Jeanne. The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. Center Point, 2013.