Advancement Project

What’s in a Vote? : Upholding Citizenship through Re-Enfranchisement

Blog post

“This plan will eliminate the darkey as a political factor in this State in less than 5 years, so that in no single county . . . will there be the least concern felt for the complete supremacy of the white race in the affairs of government.” Delegate Carter Glass’s comments to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1902 were an explicit reference to Virginia lawmakers’ scheme to systematically eradicate Blacks from the state’s electorate.