The Tribune. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1951-19??, 1951-08-18
Notes
on
Ike
N eW S
-.
By T. J. Sellers

.s.
When the Constitutional Convention op-
enedron June H. 1901, it was clearly UNI
derstood that the main business at hand
was to remove Negroes from participa-
Ion in Virginia politics. The boys worked
at Richmond for three months and came
up with program designed to keep the
ballot from their fellow black citizens who
had just won freedom from slavery in 1865.
Thus it appears that less than thirty
five years after gaining citizenship Con pa
peri, Virginia Negroes were thrown back
into a new type of slavery by lawmakers
who made It /. legal prerequisite to voting
that:
"A person be able to read any section
OF the Constitution submitted to him by
the officers of registration and to give a
reasonable explanation of the same or, if
unable to read such section, able to under
stand and to give reasonable explana-
ton thereof when read to him by the Of
ficers.'
Under this plan, many very intelligent
Negroes never quite gave the right explain
alton after reading the Constitution. and
some liiterate white citizens who could
not read the Constitution, or anything else
for that matter, always ended up with the
correst verbal explanation and were al
lowed to qualify as bonafide voters.
Of course, there were hundreds of Me-
groes too ignorant to vote in the first place,
but it was always easier to overlook white
stupidity at the average registrars office
N Sn tbo 70 e
1902 wrapped up the number one job on
its agenda and Virginia Negroes were re-
moved from politics.
All of the white leaders and quite a few
Negroes Of that period believed that coll
ored citizens should be disfranchised. The
favcrite line advanced by so-called we'll
thinking white men argued the point that
the color line in politics produced friction
between the races.
While Negro leaders like Booker T..
Washington felt that the newly freed citi-
zen had put too much emphasis on poll
tics and not enough on material prosperity
and moral worth.
History shall determine the overall valid
ity of these arguments. But one thing is
certain; the Constitutional Convention of
1902 shall always stand out as monu-
ment to politicians at their very lowest
ebb of human decency and fair play.
And the malicious work done at Rich
mond almost fifty years ago continues to
pollute our political stream in Virginia by
placing the present day Negro voter in
the category of sort of political "un-
touchable" whose support may be sought
undercover around election time, but who
may not yet be fully accepted as a full
Pledged member Of the body polite.
Certain candidates who ran ora the tick
ct in the Richmond primary on August 2
have reported that they lost votes because
certain forces had linked them with the
anti-segregation fight, an obvious lie, no
doubt, and Charlottesville aspirants to pub
lie office have been known to lose their
political pants simply because they forgot
for a moment and made the fatal error of
regarding Negroes as a part of their prog
pective constituency.
This entire unfortunate attitude toward
Negro participation in the political af-
fairs of Virginia stems from the dark days
of 1902 when one hundred high minded
and courageous gentlemen met in Rich
mond for the sole purpose of out-smarting
dumb group of voters just 35 years re-
moved from physical slavery
And to this day it seems almost impos-
sible to convince the Virginia politician
that he is not dealing with the same Negro
voters that were pushed out of the picture
back in 1902.