12:59:59 And we do have the live captioning to.
13:00:03 Okay, I've got my little paragraph about that as well. Okay. All right. It's one o'clock are we are you ready john yep rock and roll. Okay, I'm going to start the record and start the webinar now.
13:00:22 Okay.
13:00:24 All right.
13:00:25 Right. Well good afternoon and welcome to this session, African American voting in Kentucky in Virginia, 1867 to 1902. My name is john deal and I'm a historian at the Library of Virginia, and I'm excited to be the moderator for this session which I know
13:00:42 it's gonna be interesting and informative, as well.
13:00:48 will be using the live transcript for the session for accessibility purposes. If you would like to hide the subtitles. Click the live transcription button at the bottom of your application, and then select hide subtitle.
13:01:03 And if your zoom application is not maximized. You may need to click on those three dots or the more dots icon to turn off the subtitles.
13:01:16 And please use the q&a feature to post questions to the panel, and we'll have a q&a session that are moderate after our presenters, our speakers today are Karen graves, who is a reference archivist at the Library of Virginia, and she's going to be talking
13:01:35 on African American suffrage in Virginia, 1867, to 1902 our other pair of presenters are Don Tibet's who was Project Director for the first book project at the University of Virginia, and is also a professor of government at Flinders University in Adelaide,
13:01:56 Australia, and I should point out that he is joining us from Australia. At this very moment I think he said it's sometime in the wee hours of the morning so through the miracle of technology and joining Dion is Sarah john who is project manager of the
13:02:13 first vote project at UVA, and she'll be speaking that they'll be speaking on the discovery of the range, and depth of pole books in North America.
13:02:23 So before our speakers been getting their presentations. I like to say a few words to kind of set the table for what they're going to be talking about in a few minutes.
13:02:33 So the post Civil War South witnessed and upheaval to every facet of of society. In practical terms, most of the wars battles took place in the south, and of course the result being is that railroad farms, urban centers were all quite literally most we're
13:02:52 literally destroyed, also the largest measure of Southern wealth that of enslaved persons disappeared overnight. And on top of that were social and cultural effects of formerly enslaved persons, no longer being enslaved hundred the 13th amendment.
13:03:11 So how to assist formerly enslaved persons became the job of the Bureau of refugees Friedman in abandoned lands, aka the Freedmen's Bureau. That was established in March, 1865, and that was to assist former slaves with food, shelter and clothing, provide
13:03:27 educational opportunities to children, and also adults reunite families and which members were sold elsewhere, often to the deep south, provide legal representation and mediate labor contracts.
13:03:42 So the real task of admitting the former states of the Confederacy began with presidential reconstruction, in 1865, and it's sad to admit the States under fairly easy terms, not restricting former Confederate leaders from holding office or voting, and
13:03:58 certainly not protecting or providing African Americans with votes, or any rights that they thought they should be entitled to or that they were entitled to.
13:04:10 Also, southern state governments also instituted so called Black codes modeled after slave codes to manage the labor and behavior of African Americans.
13:04:20 So the light hand or presidential reconstruction.
13:04:24 For two years led to congressional for radical reconstruction acts of 18 718 67 was sought to remedy the state of affairs, the reconstruction that's extended the right to vote and hold office to African American males.
13:04:40 The x Extended military rule to former Confederate States under new gun, until new governments could be established and new constitutions written that guaranteed universal manhood suffrage.
13:04:54 Subsequently state assemblies had to ratify the 14th and 15th amendments, before they could be before the states could be readmitted into the union.
13:05:06 But not every slave holding state went through reconstruction border slave states such as Missouri, Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky did not succeed and thus we're not subject to military occupation after the war, and we're not required to write a new
13:05:21 state constitution.
13:05:24 But throughout the south, there were daily contests between black and white citizens on almost every issue, right, education, labor contracts encountering each other on the streets where, where African Americans might live.
13:05:39 everything was kind of up for grabs.
13:05:42 Most whites grudgingly agreed to give blacks rights if they had not possessed as enslaved property under the terms of radical reconstruction, but they did not agree to legal, and social equality.
13:05:57 And so, in each of these their demonstrations of how the world had changed. And as we'll see, perhaps the clearest signal of that change was were black men getting the right to vote answer whole office.
13:06:12 But it's important to note that what we think about what was happening in the north at this time. So, in contrast to the devastated south and the north thrived during the Civil War, and actually expanded and it modernized, and even expanded westward through
13:06:27 the Homestead Act and the Transcontinental Railroad, bringing the former Confederate States back into the Union would only expand and enhance that growth of not only the North, of course, of the entire country.
13:06:43 So the reconstruction acts were designed to handle the political end of getting the southern Confederate States back in the Union on the economic side northern financial interests invested in in the south.
13:07:01 In, in terms of banks and in terms of agricultural concerns, and also a rebuilding Southern railroads, of course they also owned, you saw the railroads for much of the 19th century and beyond.
13:07:12 When developing free labor contracts proved difficult between blacks and whites sharecropping began as a form of labor in terms where planters provided the land animals in the seed, while the African Americans provided the labor, and is put the cross.
13:07:31 It wasn't a free labor system as the northern, and federal government, but like, but it was a way to get agricultural products, such as tobacco and cotton and raw materials such as coal cultivated and then shipped up to the north, of course, which would
13:07:49 expand that industrialization, even more and so it sort of gets to where I think of as the Gilded Age.
13:07:57 And so we know how this plays out right, the state, the Confederate States were readmitted to the union by 1870. The Freedmen's Bureau ended in 1872.
13:08:07 And the last federal troops in the south left as part of the compromise of 1877, the federal government, then steadily grew tired of dealing with the self.
13:08:27 And unfortunately, were largely interested in protecting the rights of African Americans, especially the 15th amendment guaranteed the right to vote. So unchecked by federal authorities, over the course of the next couple of decades, white supremacists
13:08:32 regain control of state legislatures throughout the south, is said about curbing African American rights and develop many obstacles to limit African American voting, such as the poll tax literacy requirements residency requirements anything that they
13:08:48 could think of, to, to,
13:08:52 to keep African Americans from voting.
13:08:54 The early 20th century most demonstrates had developed new constitutions that essentially restricted most African Americans from voting, and many poor whites, as well.
13:09:04 But that's that's the whole story, as we'll see in our presentations today. Although the mechanics of voting different from state to state, African Americans not always desired the franchise, but in those first couple of decades exercise that franchise,
13:09:17 often in more proportional numbers than whites.
13:09:22 What is so profound that will say is that throughout the 19th century, and into the 20th, African Americans continue to vote, or at least attempted to votes in the face of withering obstacles, as well as plenty of violence.
13:09:38 And so that's going to do it for me for my short intro I'm going to turn it over to Kara greats was going to talk about African American suffrage in Virginia, 1867 to 1902, thank you john.
13:10:02 Okay.
13:10:05 So I'm going to talk about African American suffrage in Virginia, end of the Civil War, through the beginning of the 20th century, and a focus of my talk is going to be on pole books which are lists of voters.
13:10:23 There are a variety of types of election records in Virginia abstracts certificates of elections statements of vote, but they all tell the outcome poll books are just the lists of voters they don't necessarily say how someone voted but it is the people
13:10:38 who were registered to vote.
13:10:46 So john provided an overview of what the South was like after the Civil War, and a little bit about the North, as well.
13:10:54 So, how does Virginia fit into all of this. And I think that this history is important because election laws and practices, don't just happen in a vacuum.
13:11:07 They are within the context of everything else that's going on at the time.
13:11:13 So, right after the Civil War, Virginia had a lot of devastation and poverty and a big reason for this is more Civil War battles were fought in Virginia than anywhere else.
13:11:26 So there is a lot of loss of property land infrastructure especially railroads loss of life.
13:11:34 Those who were formerly enslaved gain their freedom at the end of the Civil War, often restarted their lives with very little and often found themselves still working on the property of former enslavers Virginia also had to contend with some major economic
13:11:52 problems Confederate currency wasn't worth anything anymore. There was the Panic of 1873, but perhaps most significantly the pre war debts that Virginia incurred.
13:12:06 They had spent a lot and borrowed a lot to improve infrastructure, and it took a while to pay off these debts and what made matters more difficult for Virginia is that they were a lot smaller at the end of the Civil War than they were when they began
13:12:23 48 counties were lost, with the creation of West Virginia, in 1863, two more counties followed in 1866 and West Virginia was reluctant to share in these pre war deaths because they were no longer a part of Virginia, and the debts wreak havoc on the state
13:12:43 budget all the way until they were paid off until 1937, so far into the 20th century.
13:12:51 There was also growing inequality.
13:12:56 The Freedmen's Bureau had attempted to create a measure of racial equality. But all of that was quickly reversed by white leaders when the Freedmen's Bureau left.
13:13:07 Virginia or, mostly ceased operations in Virginia. On January, 1 1869, and US Supreme Court decisions, also had an impact and 1883.
13:13:21 The civil rights cases, rolling was that the 1875 Civil Rights Act was unconstitutional and that racial discrimination did not violate the 13th and 14th amendments to the US Constitution.
13:13:35 1996 Plus he versus Ferguson and try and the concept of separate but equal.
13:13:42 And in Virginia, they, they did begin to create segregation laws, when the state militia was reformed after the Spanish American War in 1899 it was segregated.
13:13:55 It was replaced by the National Guard in 1916 and it was segregated state laws concerning segregation on public transportation began with steamboats and steam railroads and 1900 and 1906.
13:14:11 It was also electric railroad street cars and coaches residential segregation began in 1912, individuals were not forced to move, but for example of someone who was white moved into an African American neighborhood they'd have to pay a fine and then $2
13:14:31 a day.
13:14:31 There was also gerrymandering to try to put African Americans into a particular district so as to for representation.
13:14:42 In addition to all of this. There was anti union sentiment racism violence and tension between socio economic classes that prevented the equality that was intended after the abolition of slavery.
13:14:55 So that's that's what Virginia is is like after the civil war ends.
13:15:03 I also want to talk a little bit about suffrage in history suffrage in Virginia, because, again, election laws and practices, don't happen in a vacuum there within the context of everything that's happening, as well as what came before.
13:15:20 So I'm not going to go into too much detail, I'm just going to kind of hit some of the highlights.
13:15:26 Virginia had his first constitution in 1776, and it continued the colonial custom of allowing only white male landowners to vote.
13:15:36 And the only elections were for the Senate and the House of Delegates so very different from today.
13:15:43 The Constitution of 1830 refined those laws voters had to be at least age 21 again white males leaseholders or householders, and there were restrictions if someone was in Virginia, because they were here for military service they were not permanent residents
13:16:03 they were not supposed to vote. Those who were impoverished or a judge to have mental disabilities. And those who committed certain crimes were not to vote, either.
13:16:13 And voting was by voice, we will go GA, and not by ballot.
13:16:19 The Constitution 1851 just 21 years later, eliminated the property requirement but added residency requirements.
13:16:29 And at this time, there is a very significant change in that more and more offices are open for election. Now, the governor. For the first time, some judges and many local officials and prior to this time.
13:16:45 All of these offices were just appointed. But now, individuals can vote for people to serve in these offices.
13:16:55 And for the parts of Virginia, that work Confederate, this was their constitution until the end of the Civil War.
13:17:02 For the parts of Virginia, that were union held held by the Union Army.
13:17:09 They were under a different constitution.
13:17:12 On April 718 64, the Constitution of 1864 went into effect.
13:17:19 Again voting to be done by white male citizens, at least age 21, but this time they had to have paid all of their outstanding taxes swear allegiance to the US Constitution and the laws and ordinances of Virginia as they were on February 13 1861 when Virginia
13:17:38 seceded from the Union.
13:17:40 And they had to have given no a to those who are in rebellion against the United States and legislature could step in and reverse that for individuals but on the whole, you weren't supposed to have at the rebellion at all.
13:17:56 And all of Virginia came under this constitution in the very end of the Civil War.
13:18:03 And they did amended, a little bit.
13:18:05 The 1864 constitution, also called for voting by ballot.
13:18:11 Late 1865 early 1866, this gets reversed, we're voting by voice again.
13:18:18 There's no more loyalty oath or restriction on Confederate service. And there's a residency requirement of living in the state for two years, and the locality for one year.
13:18:30 And this is the constitution that was enforced until it was replaced in 1869.
13:18:36 So with all of that background you can see that Virginia has a history of limiting the vote to white males with a certain amount of wealth, including after the Civil War at a time when everyone is free, and there's a lot of poverty.
13:18:51 change was coming, but only to a point.
13:18:56 Just prior to the end of the Civil War African Americans sometimes with the support of whites began organizing to gain the right to vote, and even attempted to vote in elections.
13:19:07 This activity culminated in the colored state convention in Alexandria in August of 1865 and it also had representatives from organizations in Norfolk, and Richmond suffrage was ultimately gained on March 2 1867, that's the date of the Federal military
13:19:27 reconstruction act that called for universal male suffrage.
13:19:32 So that will include African Americans for the first time.
13:19:37 It also called for new state constitution is as john pointed out, if Virginia wanted to be readmitted to the union they had to write a new constitution.
13:19:47 So, this act called for a referendum on whether or not do that.
13:19:55 And then to elect the people who would serve on that constitutional convention so that's that's what would have to happen.
13:20:05 And very quickly 105,832 African Americans registered to vote.
13:20:11 And the constitution they were under called for voting by voice. But, Virginia had was a part of a Military District, the South, was divided into military districts Virginia was a part of Military District number one general john Scofield for a general
13:20:28 order decided that voting would take place by balance so that's what it was done. That's how it was done.
13:20:36 On October, 22 1867, the referendum and election was held, and ultimately the referendum passed Virginia would be getting a new constitution and 105 men were elected to create it, including 24 African Americans, and here we have is a poll list from Hanover
13:20:57 County.
13:21:01 From 1867, according to the way these were supposed to be created. There were separate lists for those who are white and those who are African American.
13:21:09 And this, this is just an example there are more pages to this list and these names for Hanover are some of the 1592 African Americans to register to vote, and they were 52% of the electorate.
13:21:28 On July, 6 1869 there was another referendum this time to approve the various sections of the new constitution and the Constitution as a whole was approved.
13:21:40 210,585, two 9136 so very wide margin.
13:21:48 And the only sections that we're not to be included were the ones disenfranchising former Confederates also at the same time there were elections for governor and other state level officers and 30 African Americans were elected to the General Assembly.
13:22:07 And here is a poll book from Hanover it's the same district that we saw before.
13:22:13 And the way this book was done was different, they decided they would not have separate books for whites and African Americans so they didn't.
13:22:22 And so you can see race listed by every name. Not every locality did this, some of them continue to have separate lists but Hanover did what it was supposed to do.
13:22:36 So the new constitution stated explicitly every male citizen of the United States 21 years old who shall have been a resident of the state 12 months. Notice county, city or town in which he shall offer to vote, three months next proceeding any election,
13:22:54 shall be entitled to vote upon all questions submitted to the people at such election.
13:23:01 And here's what election records from this time period, look like you can see there's a whole lot more information before it was just names, but now you can determine age.
13:23:15 So you can. And you can also track movements because it will tell you how many years, someone has been in a particular locality.
13:23:26 Also there's naturalization information so if you need to prove that you are a citizen.
13:23:42 These early years were more than about voting though, nearly 100 African Americans were elected to the Constitutional Convention or the General Assembly between 1867 and 1890, and there is no exact number for how many were elected to local offices.
13:23:49 Excuse me.
13:23:53 But there was always opposition to African American suffrage.
13:23:59 The federal government did have to step in with the enforcement acts in 1870 and 1871, there were three of them.
13:24:08 And the first one prohibiting groups from forming to intentionally violate the constitutional rights of citizens, including the right to vote authorize the presence of federal elections supervisors and marshals during the election of Congressman, and
13:24:23 allow the president to call out the armed forces and just suspended habeas corpus in situations where citizens were denied equal protection under the law.
13:24:35 And despite all of these efforts, Virginia.
13:24:38 So, took action to limit voting.
13:24:44 After it was readmitted to the union, on January 26 1870 just six years later, in 1876, the Constitution was amended to require a poll tax and to prevent those who were convicted of petty theft from voting, and they didn't remove the poll tax requirement
13:25:04 in 1882 1884 the Anderson McCormick act allowed the General Assembly to appoint members of election Review Boards who appointed the election officials and this means that the ruling party can choose people from their party who could potentially influence
13:25:24 certain outcomes at election time.
13:25:28 And finally, in 1894 Walton act if you wanted to vote you had to cross off the names of the people you didn't want to vote for, and they were very detailed and exactly how you cross off a name if you don't do it just right then they can throw out your
13:25:42 ballot.
13:25:55 In addition, all of this there is voter intimidation bribery stuffing a ballot boxes, and all of this resulted in voter apathy, there was a belief that the Democratic Party was running the government is they wished elections are corrupt so there's no
13:26:01 point in voting.
13:26:05 By the beginning of the 20th century, there was a movement to create a new constitution.
13:26:13 Some believe they have been forced to accept the Constitution of 1869. It was a way to rejoin the union, but their mindset didn't mean that they, they liked it, so they wanted a new constitution.
13:26:26 There also difficulties with railroad and publicly utility companies monopolies and the cost of government, and some wish to limit the number of voters, and perhaps entice white voters back to the polls.
13:26:41 So in May of 1900 elections were held for delegates who drafted the new state constitution next year.
13:26:49 And contrary to pass procedure, especially the last time around when people could vote on every Section of the Constitution. It was just declared in force and a thought behind that is people are not going to vote for their own disenfranchisement.
13:27:05 So the Constitution of 1902 continued to allow male citizens who are at least age 21 to vote.
13:27:14 But there was also a poll tax, as well as a test to see if an individual could explain a Section of the Constitution that was chosen by the registrar starting in 1904 registration could occur if a man and paid his poll tax for three years and applications
13:27:31 were made in the individual's own handwriting. In the presence of registration officials, unless he was physically unable to do so.
13:27:39 Going forward, the poll tax be paid in person at least six months prior to an election.
13:27:45 These were just some of the provisions, but you can see that, having enough wealth to pay a tax was certainly a qualification as well as literacy.
13:27:57 And if the registrar can choose any section of the, of the Constitution he wants to be there their sections that are easy to explain and some that are hard to explain.
13:28:09 Warren County kept a list of those who attempted to register and were unable to do so this is a small book, mostly empty, but it does have the names of 37 individuals.
13:28:22 All of them were denied the right to vote, except for one, it looks like maybe he was denied and then there was a lot of erasing, and that was replaced by a note that he was allowed to vote.
13:28:35 And it's particularly interesting because it reveals what sections of the Constitution.
13:28:42 People were asked to explain and it was generally the Bill of Rights section at the beginning of the Constitution.
13:28:51 So election records will demonstrate the disenfranchisement that took place so this this is what we saw before, this is an.
13:29:03 Pull book from before. The Constitution of 1902 and I copy the page that has the seeds and in fact there's a second page of individuals with surname that begins with see their 34 in all for rural point.
13:29:21 And so that's 34 people.
13:29:24 When we get to the election of 1902. Look at that there are only three. So that is a major decline in numbers.
13:29:34 The information is actually very similar except you get a year of birth and not just an age for this.
13:29:44 So I put this chart together from Hanover County records and I will say that I chose Hanover because the Library of Virginia has a lot of election records, but it is hard to find a complete run from 1867 all the way past 1902, but I was able to do that
13:30:03 with Hanover.
13:30:06 I believe that district one from the 1860s is the same as rural point.
13:30:15 So I'm kind of guessing there but I think all of these records are basically from the same area.
13:30:23 And I think the numbers are really revealing, you can see in 1867, that there were actually more African American voters and white voters a lot of white voters were not allowed to vote or they want to participate in the process.
13:30:40 In 1869, the numbers are a little more even voting on that constitution, and then going forward.
13:30:49 There are a few African American voters, but the numbers are kind of equal they're not that far off.
13:30:58 But when you get to 1902, you can see a really major difference where African American voting is in the 40s.
13:31:07 And let's say white voters are average about 200.
13:31:11 Another problem that I faced is, these are just all the books we have.
13:31:16 You can see that the dates are overlapping so things aren't quite exact but I still think we can tell something from these numbers, and I will say also that names were crossed off occasionally, presumably because someone died or they moved.
13:31:30 I just counted every name in there.
13:31:35 To compare here is a chart.
13:31:39 voting from 1884 to 1924.
13:31:42 And this is in the city of Richmond so capital of Virginia. And you can see it's got a steady decline until we get to 1920 women get the vote then so there is a definite spike.
13:31:55 If women can meet the same qualifications, as men, they were allowed to vote, to.
13:32:01 But take a look at what was going on before and after the Constitution in 1902 presidential elections are among the most popular that's where you get the big turnout in 1900 8895 people voted in 1904.
13:32:19 It dropped to 4350, even though in that time period Richmond's population increased by 10,000 people, so that that's a major, major drop, and of course there's still can be apathy.
13:32:35 But I think we also have to consider the restrictive voting laws that were in existence that impacted. Everyone, African Americans disproportionately but certainly whites as well, who cannot meet the requirements.
13:32:51 And I'll also just add that there were no African Americans in the General Assembly between 1890 and 1967.
13:33:00 So to conclude I'll just mention what we have today. The 1902 constitution remained in effect for nearly 70 years, although there were a few changes I mentioned that women got the right to vote in 1920 with the 19th amendment to the US Constitution and
13:33:16 the poll tax ended in 1964 with the 24th amendment to the US Constitution as well as the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
13:33:28 On July, 1 1971 is when we got our current constitution there been a referendum on it the previous fall, and it removes so many of the restrictions on voting.
13:33:43 US citizens who are age 21 years or older, and we're residents of Virginia for six months and a precinct for one month could vote.
13:33:52 When the 26th amendment to the US Constitution was ratified it was the same year, the age dropped to 18 and 1976 residency requirements were dropped.
13:34:05 But permanent residents were supposed to be the only ones who could vote.
13:34:10 So that concludes my presentation and I welcome, whatever questions you have during the q amp a portion. And thank you, and I will turn it over to john or back to john.
13:34:22 Thank you, Kara for that.
13:34:26 Amazing.
13:34:28 Walk through Virginia in the post Civil War period.
13:34:32 So, just reminder if you want to have your if you have any questions, drop them in the q amp a dialog box for our q amp a panel.
13:34:41 At the end of the session.
13:34:44 I think Don and Sarah, I think Dan's gonna start us off talking about poll books so Don I'm going to turn it over to you.
13:34:51 Thank you.
13:34:57 Okay, I hope this is visible to everyone.
13:35:02 And I'd like to explain some of the differences between the situation in Virginia, and in Kentucky has kind of said the constitutions are absolutely critical in this and Kentucky continued, all the way through the Civil War.
13:35:19 And up until 1891 with the same Constitution, which required voting to be bought by voice. Virginia ended that with its new constitution in the civil war after the Civil War.
13:35:35 So the Kentucky story is a little bit different.
13:35:39 But in our poll books therefore are a fair bit different as well, because they tell us, not only who voted, but how they voted.
13:35:48 So, this process begins
13:35:54 with the, with an adventure of mine at the University of North Carolina, where I discovered, for the first time. what I thought was a wonderful invention, which are the, the individual posts ebooks.
13:36:11 And so this is what I found at the University of North Carolina, a pull book from or the material from a pole book in Prince Edward County, Virginia.
13:36:25 Now I spent a lot of time working with aggregate voting data and what I was looking for when I went to North Carolina was smaller units where I might be able to tell more about how individuals voted.
13:36:40 If the unit was small enough, rather than a whole county. And what I found instead was not small aggregate data, but individual data, and I could not for the life of me figure out how this occurred.
13:36:55 And so here is a poll book or the, the material taken from a pole book, which shows you a whole set of individuals. These are people who voted in 1840 election for Van Buren, and what had been done is those names were copied out, and then the addresses
13:37:16 were written in that is the post offices so that political material could be sent to them. But he was individual level data.
13:37:25 I had never encountered that, and I was certainly not aware that this kind of individual level political information was available was precisely what I wanted.
13:37:38 And of course, the same thing was true for the Harrison voters so I puzzled over this for a long time, then went back to the law books for every one of the American states to try to figure out why this information was available, and finally discovered
13:37:57 as Karen said the Viva Voce a system, the by voice voting system, and it finally was systematized into something that looked like this.
13:38:10 The states that required all voting to be by voice.
13:38:17 And the point the point of the poll book was to record how each individual voted and the poll book is the official record of the election.
13:38:27 So if there is a dispute. The dispute would be settled by going back to the poll book, and looking at the individuals was that person actually qualified to vote.
13:38:38 was it a proper resident.
13:38:42 And these records are, I think, the best political information that we have really, in, in American history. Because they tell us for whole populations how everybody voted, and we can do a lot with that information.
13:39:01 So those are the states that voted by voice and shows you when they when they began.
13:39:08 And essentially this is the pattern of settlement moving across the eyes of what became the United States from the east to the west where people moved with their law books, and they wrote into the law of new territories and then new states, what they
13:39:27 had experienced in the old territories and states. And so the VOJ system expands, essentially westward with the population. Those are the states that have it.
13:39:39 and therefore there are individual level political information in large quantities in those states in the poll books of those of those states. And you can see them when the secret ballot or as they say in Australia, the Australian Bell is adopted in the
13:39:57 United States, this is something that's actually invented, pretty much in this state in South Australia, or in the neighboring state of Victoria, and then spreads to England, and to Canada in the 1870s, and it's adopted in the United States in the 1890s
13:40:19 and we have a, an actual picture, a painting of a Viva Bo chay election, this is George Kayla becomes famous painting.
13:40:31 It's an account of an election in sailing County, Missouri.
13:40:39 And being is actually in the picture so if you look down here, this is George Kayla Bingham bent over writing something and probably listening to the votes that are given up on that platform.
13:40:56 So you can see this is a pretty, pretty lively scene, sometimes being is understood to be highly critical of the democratic process but in fact what he presents in this picture is really a balanced view.
13:41:12 Yeah, there are some drugs.
13:41:15 There are some people who probably shouldn't be walking much less voting.
13:41:21 But there's also a good deal of earnest conversation.
13:41:26 And this is how a vague about a election actually happened. The people assembled and not just voters.
13:41:34 But, children were there. And in many cases of families and women were there. And then the votes were given by voice spoken out and recorded by the election.
13:41:56 Clerk, and this is becomes painting a sketch of a election clerk goes sharpening his quill pen too big to continue to write in ink in the poll book, which he has prepared.
13:42:08 So I went around and started looking for these poll books, and they are I think very very interesting devices and full of information that that I think is quite remarkable.
13:42:23 So here's what I found quite by accident I was, I visited each of the states which had Viva Voce a voting was, I wrote to the county clerk's of every county in each of those states to the state archives and depositories in all those states and tried to
13:42:43 figure out where there were large concentrations of poll books that might might survive. So this is one from Illinois.
13:42:55 This is an election for the county sheriff in, and 18 actually taking 34.
13:43:07 And if you look at who the election. Clerk, is it's none other than a Blinken. So, I was in the, the old Virginia, all the old the Illinois State House, and I was being given a tour.
13:43:23 And we went through the tour and there was some old reconstruction of the.
13:43:33 The House chamber and a desk with pigeonholes, and had in the pigeon holes all these rolled up pieces of paper. And I asked if I could look at some of those.
13:43:45 And they said, Sure, have a look. And then I said oh look here's a blanket.
13:43:51 Who is 2025 years of age, and he's the clerk of the election so he was actually recording this vote.
13:44:00 Needless to say that pole book was whisked away from me and quickly became a priced item of the Illinois Historical Society.
13:44:11 And there is.
13:44:13 So, you know, I think a remarkable find, and it's a reminder that all of the
13:44:23 founders of large parts of the American political tradition.
13:44:29 Understood voting to be bought by voice. This was the Virginia system. So this is what Jefferson and Madison Monroe and Washington, all grew up in, and Lincoln, as well.
13:44:41 They understood politics to be the voice of the people, quite literally, and in that being in painting, if one goes back to it and looks that flag which is there are the blue flag above the voting platform.
13:44:57 It says exactly that, the voice of the people. And literally, It is the voice.
13:45:04 So Sarah and I have worked together on this project for, for many years. And of course with as Carlos said within the constitution changes, the US Constitution, African American voting becomes possible with the certification of the 15th amendment, at
13:45:25 the end of March, in 1870.
13:45:30 It happened in Todd county in Kentucky, which is a county down on the Tennessee line it's a tobacco county County.
13:45:41 It was a big producer of tobacco had a very, very large enslaved population. About one in three people. And suddenly, at the end of March, 1870, all those African American men as Kyle said only the men could vote.
13:46:03 And this is the poll book from that first election. This is one of the very first elections. After the 15th amendment, in which African American men could vote.
13:46:16 And you can see, there is the pole book there all the names. So the pole book preserves not only who voted and how they voted but the order in which they voted, and that takes us to issues of networks and neighborhoods and families.
13:46:35 And this is it, This is a strange election.
13:46:38 It's a special election for a new member of congress because there's a vacancy. And the contest is between Lewis, who is the first name in the, in the candidate list up at the top, written going horizontal a vertically.
13:46:57 And that's Lewis, who's a former Confederate General. He is the candidate for Congress from the Democratic Party Lowery is the next name again going vertically, and he's the candidate for the republicans.
13:47:15 Now the, you can see that in that poll book.
13:47:19 The African American voters are all identify, so it says col for colored.
13:47:26 And there is an interesting difference in this so there are many offices here being chosen, not just congress but county offices as well.
13:47:37 The county judge the county clerk the county attorney the county assessor.
13:47:44 The jailer.
13:47:45 And if you look carefully you can see this pool book is telling you something else.
13:47:51 Because if you look about the.
13:47:56 If you look, the third voter down. That's the first white republican voter.
13:48:04 And you can see that the white republican only votes in Congress for the congressional candidate slavery.
13:48:12 And if you look at the African American voters. You can see the same thing is true.
13:48:17 But the way democrats who vote for Lewis are voting for all the other offices, and for the longest time, we couldn't figure out what this was. But what it actually is, is an effort of the Democratic Party to take control of the whole political apparatus
13:48:37 and to attach to especially election for Congress, a party primary.
13:48:43 So this is the Democratic Party primary attached to a special congressional election.
13:48:54 And this might be the first real primary in the United States in that the primary is run by the state by the government. The county government in this case.
13:49:06 And it's a rather, I think a remarkable, remarkable effort for the democrats to say that they're in control of this political process. So, but we found enormous array of pull books for Kentucky.
13:49:27 There, I think, just remarkable information, and in Garrett county. We can go all the way from 1860, up till 1891 until the adoption of the new constitution now finding the poll books is an important part of the story.
13:49:44 But the question is what do you do with them.
13:49:47 And so what we've done with them over more years than I'd like to think, is to attach every other kind of political infamous political and social information that we can find to them, so we end up with very very substantial databases.
13:50:02 And this is the kind of information that we've put together in a series of studies, which we have underway in the Viva Bo chay states. And you can see that in the two websites that we've developed the social logic website at the University of Virginia
13:50:22 and the first boat website at the University of Virginia that Sarah and I are working on.
13:50:28 We have an enormous array of information. In addition to just how people vote. It includes all the linkages with the census records. So in the case of Garrett county from from 1870 up to, to 1900, local tax lists, where people live, where they organizations
13:50:50 they belong to. In the case of Alexandria and Newport, what, what, religious organizations they belong to. Perhaps the most important is the location of where people lived and we've managed in six of these case studies to map all almost all of the voters,
13:51:10 so we know where they are we know the neighborhoods. We know a great deal about, about these people.
13:51:17 And in the case of Garrett County, Sarah has developed panel data sets which are I think probably the biggest and best collection of individual level political decisions that we that we have.
13:51:31 And finally, it ends, it ends with the adoption of the, of the secret ballot and this is one of the very first examples of a secret ballot used in Massachusetts in 1889.
13:51:48 But the first election which a secret ballot was actually used is in Louisville, Kentucky, just the year before this. So, there. I think that's useful to have some additional clarity in language, all books can be many things, they can tell you simply
13:52:12 who voted.
13:52:13 But some in some states they've about say states, tell you how they voted and ballot. Before the secret ballot really probably meant more party tickets than a state printed ballot, although there's some experimentation with that in many of the states,
13:52:33 but it's the secret ballot that comes in and exactly as I said, this is, in my view, the beginning of the great disenfranchisement.
13:52:45 Because even voting with a ballot of this kind, as opposed to a party list required literacy.
13:52:53 It was individual, it was not collective and voting turnout declined, along with registration books and all of the other apparatus. So, that's the end of what I want to talk about and so now over to Sarah, who will tell us more about what we've been able
13:53:14 to do in Kentucky. with these quite remarkable. Pull books. Thank you.
13:53:24 Thank you don. I'm going to pick up where Don left off, and look more with a laser focus on what the public's can tell us about African American voting in Kentucky during the first enfranchisement so be focusing on the time between 1870.
13:53:42 When the 15th amendment becomes law, and for the first time African Americans are enfranchised and hitting all the way through to the 1891 election, which is the election in which Kentucky votes on adopting a new constitution, or brother having a constitutional
13:53:57 convention.
13:53:59 And then adopts that can adopt that new constitution gets rid of the voting voting and replaces that with the secret ballot, which means we no longer know exactly who votes and for whom they voted.
13:54:12 So just to reiterate the Kentucky situation is different than the Virginia situation, Kentucky was a border state.
13:54:20 It was never subject to reconstruction, it did have a large former slave population about 30% of the population. And it really was the 15th amendment that enfranchised African Americans.
13:54:33 It didn't have to revise its constitution, because it never succeeded, never succeeded and so didn't wasn't a condition of admission. So, the Kentucky constitution remains the same over this period of time until 1892, or 91.
13:54:50 Alright folks, what can they tell us.
13:54:56 Um, I'm going to talk about five different things that whole books like this one from 1870 and Brandi springs can tell us about African American.
13:55:05 They can tell us what they can confirm that it really did indeed happen
13:55:10 in the 19th century and in Kentucky, they can show us that it happened a lot that voter turnout of African Americans was often very high, and sometimes higher than what they can show us that African American participation happened for a long time, all
13:55:28 the way up through 1891, and in the face of things like kkk attacks in the face of election violence in some of our case studies, you know, 10s of deaths at polling places.
13:55:54 It can tell us that African American participation only really ends with legal devices like the secret ballot lack registration system schemes that can tell us where black voting flourished.
13:55:57 What sort of geographies what sort of communities. And we can see African American political participants as agents that we can see individuals who were mobilizing their neighbors, we can see individual political leaders and start to get that narrative
13:56:15 of what.
13:56:17 Who were these. So, I'll go through each one now.
13:56:21 So firstly it happened.
13:56:22 This is from the 1870 election that john showed you a poll from. So the first election in Kentucky in which African American men can vote.
13:56:32 And what we can see here I've got a couple newspaper articles and the congressional.
13:56:38 The Congressional vote by race.
13:56:40 The article on the left is the Tennessee and news report, talking about the Democratic primary or democratic nominating convention to nominate the Democratic candidate to Congress, and you can see in the highlighted portion that people will quite aware
13:56:57 that this was going to be a different election the April election was going to be different.
13:57:01 This will be the first election in Kentucky, in which the colored men will vote under the 15th amendment. And we can see the foolishness of the democrats perhaps the democrats seem confident that the colored Virtus will in the main support the Democratic
13:57:14 Party.
13:57:16 Perhaps unsurprisingly outdated show that they did not. But we can see in the table to the right, that we have extremely racially polarized voting 94% of white voters voting for the democrat candidate Lewis, and then 96% of black voters voting for the
13:57:32 Republican candidate.
13:57:35 Okay so voting clearly happened, like 13 clearly happened. And it happened a lot.
13:57:39 So this chart is from one of our other case studies it's from Garrett County.
13:57:45 Where as Don showed we have this really long run of Publix stretching from 1870, all the way through 1891.
13:57:54 And each Monroe there is African American turnout, and each yellow row is what turn now.
13:58:02 We have this complicated system of recreating communities and then estimating estimating turnout. So, note that these turnout estimates are just estimates, but we're reasonably confident.
13:58:14 And one thing that you should be able to see from this chart, which has elections local elections town elections county elections state gubernatorial elections and presidential elections, is that there's no clear pattern.
13:58:26 Doesn't look like turnout is declining of a ton. And it doesn't look like black and white turnout is consistently high. So, we can see politics looks a bit more perhaps more complicated than we might have thought of with African American turnout persisting,
13:58:41 all the way up until 1891.
13:58:45 Okay, and so that's the point that turn up persist for a long time, this poll book is from the 1891 election in Lancaster, it's a gubernatorial election.
13:59:04 It's the last election that we have, and it's only a few months before the secret ballot is adopted in Kentucky on this, I have shown you this four different tickets running the Democratic Republic and the prohibition, and the People's Party.
13:59:16 And I've also highlighted a set of voters, and that's African American voters. This is the first page. These are the first photos of the morning at the Lancaster courthouse.
13:59:27 And you can see that African Americans is still quite easily turning out to vote in 1891.
13:59:34 You'll also notice that the, the, the only prohibition party murder on the page indeed the only prohibition party photo of the day in Lancaster is an African American named Henry Mason.
13:59:48 And, as I'll discuss a little bit later he's one of the key characters mobilizing his neighbors voting into voting, he's a he's a shoemaker a bookmaker, and is fighting for the prohibition party.
14:00:03 All right, what's the next thing he can tell us.
14:00:06 We can also start with the addition of thinking about different maps like we have this map from 1879 that maps land ownership in the county. This isn't Garrett County.
14:00:19 And so you might be able to see there the names of different landowners. And if we look more laser focus Lee Lancaster, we can see what individuals who own their homes or who are vain enough to pay to have their names written on this map.
14:00:35 We're where they live down so we can start to do some social networking, we can see where African American voting persistent where it was concentrated so just as an example as a bit of a taste.
14:00:46 This is a density map of where African Americans lived in 1870 in Lancaster, and then we can juxtapose it against where African American voters live, where they turned out in 1870, and that little community, the southwest of the town will prove to prove
14:01:03 to be very important its way Henry Mason leaves us with James, James Anderson who I'll talk about in a second lives.
14:01:14 And let me say sir.
14:01:17 And then we can start to look at who the individual leaders were in more conventional histories, we can follow through the what important notables were so George Danny is one of them.
14:01:30 He was the key organizer in the Republican Party. Plenty of histories written about him plenty of news articles. Your comprehensive genealogical research can be done on George, Jenny.
14:01:43 Important Garrett county organizer in the Republican Party, what the poll books enable us to do is start to figure out who the important organizers, African American organizers.
14:01:54 And so this.
14:01:56 The image on the right is a map of individual voters in the 1891 elections so you can see, Henry Mason is there.
14:02:07 And he's organizing his neighbors into voting so this is these are the voters who voted on that first page of the whole book that I showed you see this kind of concentration in that neighborhood of town.
14:02:21 The blue dots indicate whether or not the individual was a veteran, which is another important network that we see, for African American voters.
14:02:31 We say that a lot of the leaders in the community, served at Camp Nelson, which was a big African American recruiting station just 10 miles north of Lancaster, and we see those bonds holding all the way through to 1891 and being quite cheap.
14:02:50 And so, another instance is this man James, James Anderson. He, like Henry Mason served at Camp Nelson. He ran away from his owners when he was 1616 year olds are not were not able to enlist a soldier so here listed as a musician, as you can see and it's
14:03:08 a smart card in the middle there.
14:03:10 card in the middle there. And he liked Mason proved to be one of these very important pillars of political participation voting in the 1870 election voting in almost every election in between all the way through to 1891.
14:03:24 And so what we see is this, these amazing networks that we can pick apart the stories that we can start to create where African Americans a political agents, they're not the conventional history where we talk about African Americans as having things done
14:03:39 to them as being.
14:03:41 If it's to disenfranchise but we can see them as politically active agents, the Pope's really helped with that.
14:03:48 And this is the final slide which reiterate the point that Don was making their political participation seems to persist, all the way up to the adoption of the new constitution in Kentucky.
14:04:00 And it's the secret ballot.
14:04:04 As a defect or literacy test you have to be able to read to to cast a secret ballot, as well as registration schemes, where you have to be registered before you're allowed to vote so there's an extra barrier that appears to be the key to agents of disenfranchised
14:04:20 enfranchisement in Kentucky. So, this images of a 19 or 678.
14:04:30 Registration book in Lancaster town, the same place we've been looking at, and we can see one voter who is still enfranchised and able to vote, come 1906 and that's the six foot, 738 further down.
14:04:48 That's James Anderson, so he remains registered and an active participant, all the way through to 19, or six. But many of his compatriots do not.
14:05:02 And so that's pretty much where I wanted to end it before we launch over into the q amp a so back to john.
14:05:10 All right. Thank you Sarah that was. Those are some very amazing presentations and I really appreciate what you guys, what you guys did. So yeah, we've got a couple of questions in the that we've been given, I'm going to use my role as moderator and ask
14:05:30 question in my own if I could. As many of the audience will understand.
14:05:33 There are fewer personal primary source materials for African Americans like diaries and letters and correspondence that have survived especially from the 19th century.
14:05:45 So that's the opposite dependent on public records to kind of tease out their stories and I think all of you have done that to one extent or another. So I guess my question is beyond sort of the actual voting and the actual election.
14:06:07 What is, what have these records.
14:06:03 Told you are giving you insight about with respect to the African American experience. And I'm going to go to care of first if I might, Kara.
14:06:13 Thank you.
14:06:15 I think you can see from our presentations that we use these records for different things, and I use them for genealogy workshops for the past 10 years, I've been doing workshops on African American genealogy I started with up through 1870 and I've recently
14:06:37 gone from reconstruction to World War One.
14:06:41 And I use these records, as a way to put people in a certain place and time.
14:06:50 I appreciate that, that they really early ones especially do seem to be just lists, but when you study them. first of all the person's name is on there so that that shows an interest in in wanting to participate in elections, but also for the 1860s, it
14:07:09 can be hard to find people prior to the 1870 census if they were enslaved and the first census they're honest 1870 but election records are way to do that.
14:07:20 And in the later ones, you get birth years which is a great thing because sometimes that that's a very difficult bit of information to find Virginia was not keeping birth records at the state level after 1896 and again until mid 1912 so you can get a
14:07:40 birth year from these should you be interested in naturalization information, then that's on there too, so that's that's how I use these records, they may not be the first thing that would think to go to for genealogy, but but they, they are names and
14:08:02 I think that they are certainly something worth looking at and this my part of the presentation was derived from workshops that I do of course expanded it for what we do here I don't, I can't spend as much time on it normally daughter Sarah What do you
14:08:20 got what hope Have you use records, beyond just a collection, and you certainly teased it you know that great data that you guys were were using. So, what you guys stand on that.
14:08:34 If I can just say a couple of things I mean one of the, one of the things that individual level data allows you to do is to actually figure out what turnout was.
14:08:44 And as Sarah said we've developed some largely Sarah has developed some remarkable measures of turnout, that we think are very accurate.
14:08:56 And this changes I think our, our kind of conventional trajectory, which is that there was some kind of golden age in the 19th century.
14:09:07 And, you know, politics was really important.
14:09:10 And then it sort of, you know, we've never been up to where it was in the past.
14:09:17 And in fact, it wasn't a golden age the turnout figures are much, much more similar to today than anybody has discovered. So, Walter Dean Burnham's ancient work, which trying to show the turnout in the 19th century was 80 or 90%, is, is we don't think
14:09:39 is the case at all.
14:09:41 With this individual level information we get turned on figures with around 50 or 60%, which is sort of like today.
14:09:51 And I think that gives us a different sense of the past so I think we've lost something in the way that so many people thinking and just a quickly. Another thing is it tells us how elections were designed it was it by conversion, or mobilization, and
14:10:16 says there's very little conversion, but there's a great deal of contesting about mobilization. And I think that's an important discovery. And third, as Sarah said, We can see black agency here.
14:10:24 So this is not people who are just acted upon these people really want to vote, they want to vote, a lot, and they do vote, a lot.
14:10:34 And, and in that sense, the 15th amendment should be celebrated. Rather than denigrated.
14:10:49 Sarah. Yeah, I would probably reiterate a few things.
14:10:55 In the first one is that it does enable you do challenge.
14:10:54 Conventional wisdoms that ascertained, I guess by aggregate data, don't really know what individuals are doing you have this sense of what the mass is doing, and you make inferences from that we can actually see and get a better handle on what participation
14:11:11 did indeed look like.
14:11:13 So not just, whether elections will one or not but who was participating, which kinds of people were the ones that were most likely to vote.
14:11:23 Who were the regular voters that continued all the way to 8091 came out every single election, no matter what the, the office was, and that's that's a very different kind of information than we've ever had before.
14:11:35 And we can also, for me the really interesting, exciting part is building that social network analysis, seeing how and when for it survived. what sort of geographies and communities in which voting flourished i think that that has some insight for today
14:11:54 where we're trying to understand apathy and participation. We have our aggregate stats. And so there's a lot of insights for political science that I think hold over, even though this is historical data it's better data than you could get today.
14:12:10 Actually voting not reporting that they're going to vote and how they would vote in the abstract and so we can we can get at some of those measures and I guess, not just predictors but when participation happens it doesn't happen
14:12:27 that those are some great answers I like to just add one little note that underscores what you're saying is, with these election records, especially in those first elections.
14:12:39 It's the first time that many African Americans. Their names are imprints.
14:12:45 If you're talking about the slick quote unquote slaves census records of 1815 1860, they don't have the enslaved person's name, it just has that they exist it has their owners name, and it has some data about their age and gender and so, and occasionally
14:13:18 reels we have the first name, perhaps if they were being a will to somebody, but not their first and second names, and certainly not participating in the free in. In, exercising their, their civil rights.
14:13:20 So it's really important and that we tease that out.
14:13:25 I've got a question for Don or Sarah, where have the Kentucky poll books that you have shared been preserved.
14:13:36 Sharon you will not sell you want to do it since you're smiling a little bit you got a good answer for that one is the one that found the so he knows where they are.
14:13:49 Well, I think the short answer is that, You know the, I think the poor books are just these remarkable treasures, they are Sarah said they're the best information we have about what people actually did, it's better than the information we have today.
14:14:07 It's the best information there is, and seems to me, these are just remarkable treasures unhappily, most of that treasure has been lost.
14:14:18 And they pull books, I would say 98% of the pull books, across all those states have been lost.
14:14:27 They went court houses burned when floods occurred when the rats got in, and probably most when archivist through or county officials through the mouth, because they didn't have to keep them.
14:14:41 So, we found these scattered. We found some in in Lancaster itself. I found pull books and attics and basements and volts.
14:14:57 In pigeon holes forgotten it. Most of the records that we have for Kentucky are in that we are preserved in the, in the Kentucky.
14:15:08 Library and Archives in Frankfurt.
14:15:13 So, others would exist in courthouses around the state.
14:15:18 That's true in Virginia, as well.
14:15:22 And they are everywhere but not in the quantity that that I would like, where they can be found, it seems to me county officials should be encouraged to preserve them because they are remarkable.
14:15:39 That's a long answer. The short answer was mostly were lost, but I will die I appreciate that answer because it underscores how fragile. These records are in this digital age with everybody thinking, everything is online.
14:15:55 It's nice to be to be reminded about the fragile nature of these records and the you know the story of, of, you know, county court clerks throwing out records is one that the library Virginia has heard as well.
14:16:13 I'm Sarah, anything to throw into that I was going to get done to recount the story on some of the records we use what they say from a dumpster somewhere.
14:16:25 Yes, that's right. I mean indeed that's that's true of some of the, the records of Garrett County.
14:16:36 You know they were just just willy nilly tossed out, and occasionally people who are interested to local history, or maybe they just like leather bound books or paper, who picked them out and kept them.
14:16:49 So, you know they they are.
14:16:54 They are an easily lost material. And once they're lost, of course, we never have those stories to tell, but the stories they tell are remarkable stories.
14:17:10 And that's really what we've been able to do with these records once they're linked to all the other records, and particularly once as Sarah said we can map people, and we can actually show spatial distribution and bring some of the new technologies geographic
14:17:27 Information Systems Analysis into this with with this remarkable data.
14:17:37 It Tara Can you talk about the available records such poll books in the light at the Library of Virginia.
14:17:43 Sure.
14:17:45 The ones that are used for this presentation, the 1867, and 1869, our state records, their military records, and we have a finding eight available for them that lists all of the localities that we have so they're pretty easy.
14:18:06 of the other way records that I used our local records so they came from courthouses and the way Virginia works. The court clerks retain possession of these records, they're always belong to the clerks and the counties, but they can send them to the library
14:18:24 for us to keep them.
14:18:26 And they can also potentially permit micro filming, as well.
14:18:32 And we haven't we haven't really digitized this sort of thing, at this point.
14:18:38 So the records are not ours, they do not automatically come here, and that's why I had some trouble putting together my, my examples because I really wanted to trace one place from start to finish and Hanover, that particular precinct is what I, I came
14:18:56 up with so I appreciate the Don and Sarah can be more
14:19:03 look around for it and see you know was was hand over some kind of anomaly, I don't know.
14:19:09 But I'm also looking at something different and just trying to, to find names. So, Um, so yes, I agree. Definitely the scarcity of records, my difficulty in finding things that was limited to what we have here.
14:19:27 But they are there. So, so definitely, if, if you're looking for a particular locality do ask us and see what we can come up with.
14:19:38 Thank you, Kara, and here's a question.
14:19:55 Were any of the panelists be able to speak about the voting voting rights of black women.
14:19:50 I can take that if, if, if that's allowed.
14:19:56 So, the short version is African American women got the vote with the 19th amendment enacted in 1920.
14:20:07 But as the question also asked, they had the same
14:20:14 sorts of things done to them as we're done to African American men to keep them from A to keep them from voting. So the usual things, the poll tax residency and those sorts of things.
14:20:26 So they, there's no difference in terms of how as African American men and African American women retreated in terms of, of getting the rights of votes in 1920.
14:20:39 So I'm going to do a shameless plug if I could, I just happen to know that my colleagues Mary Julian and Barbara Batson are going to give a talk on women and voting tomorrow I think it's in the four o'clock shot through the magic of technology I've been
14:21:05 my colleague Barbara Bateson, who is hopefully going to put the info in our chat, so they'll have some, some great information on that. And tomorrow so be sure to be sure to tune and here's another question let's see.
14:21:14 Here's another question let's see. Does the depiction often see in movies about keeping black people from voting have much basis in fact to what you have found in your research, i'm john if you, If you guys have been mapping.
14:21:28 And during your data, anything to that.
14:21:33 to that. We don't in the work in in Todd county where the clan is very active.
14:21:43 And there are two groups of white men who go around terrorizing parts of that of that county.
14:21:52 It doesn't look to us as if the targets are particularly black men who are voting.
14:22:01 But just to go back to your earlier question, what, what the closest explanation that Sarah and I have been able to come up with is that many of these attacks on on black men are actually in retaliation for what black women, their wives are doing, and
14:22:21 being very active in in civil rights matters. So, I think, even though, you know, black women certainly couldn't vote for another half a century. It doesn't mean that black women weren't important.
14:22:36 When black men were voting and our work in Todd county is a really interesting example of that and we're able to track one woman, in particular, who is just remarkable in pushing for her rights and testifying, which is at a coroner's court when her husband
14:23:05 is murdered by the Klan and black women are there. And if we look carefully at the circumstances of black men voting black women are part of that story.
14:23:25 Thanks Don that was, that was great. anybody else have wanted to add anything to that.
14:23:32 I was just say, Don't underestimate the level of white antipathy to African Americans, getting the right to vote.
14:23:43 You know, under the certainly newspapers in during this period. There's lots of, I might call anecdotal evidence of various things happening at at the election polls.
14:23:56 Most of the time of course these were white newspapers talking about African Americans in derogatory terms and and that sort of thing so I, as with everything in this time period you need to consider the source of the source of information itself.
14:24:15 Oh, here's another specific one for for Don and Sarah does the State of Kentucky have a record retention schedule for their records.
14:24:26 Are they mandated at least now to properly dispose to posit them.
14:24:34 Well, I'm not an archivist so I don't know, but I believe that is the case, but the pole books are not considered vital records.
14:24:50 And as far as I understand it, counties and cities because oftentimes the pull books were not just held by the county clerk they were held by the city clerk, that it's really up to them, whether or not they want to keep them or not.
14:25:08 And if they need more space they put them in the dumpster.
14:25:14 Unfortunately, that's all too true, um, we've got a question for Kara.
14:25:20 You mentioned the 1864 constitution, who actually passed slashing implemented that constitution for that.
14:25:31 When Virginia seceded, the federal government sees to recognize Virginia is the capital and the capital was viewed as wheeling and of course then West Virginia was created can't be there anymore, so it moves to Alexandria.
14:25:51 And so, there were certainly union health parts of Virginia, Virginia as we know it today.
14:25:58 And so that's, that's where that constitution was in effect so it's not the majority of the state, it's just the portions that are are considered union.
14:26:10 And it's funny that that comes up care I just this morning about three hours ago I was having a conversation with a colleague, about how the 1864 constitution is often overlooked.
14:26:23 And, and which is which is certainly not, certainly not the case. So thank you for that.
14:26:27 Let me see I'm trying to see if we've got we have great questions I'm trying to see if there's any others were sort of getting towards the end of our time.
14:26:36 Let's see.
14:26:40 I'm
14:26:43 sorry about I'm trying.
14:26:46 Well I think we have probably reached the limit of our questions, and our chats.
14:26:54 I guess I'll sort of throw it out there Did anybody else, any of y'all wanted to say any last words before we before we sign off
14:27:06 on everybody speak at one time.
14:27:08 I just say keep the books look for him, and keep him great material.
14:27:15 I don't think my, my colleagues for including me in this, and I really something I really liked about this session is we're using the same records, but we're using them in very different ways.
14:27:30 And in many cases they are just a list of names but when you study them they have much more meaning.
14:27:36 Yeah and I echo that. Thank you, everyone and I suppose the key thing to take away is that even though there was a lot of violence there was a lot of hostility towards African Americans voting, we can show that they did in fact do that, the face of that
14:27:54 in the face of their former owners and I think that's a powerful story to take away.
14:28:00 So I could not agree more. And thank you for saying that. And I would certainly like to thank the panel for asking me to moderate the session and, and thanks for they're great.
14:28:10 They're great presentation so thanks to our audience. We had like more than 100.
14:28:17 For most of the session and thank you for the good questions before we close I'd like to, I like to actually close on a personal note, if I might.
14:28:30 And I would be remiss if I did not comment on how important it is that scholars like Kara and Don and Sarah are conducting research into voting records and elections is perhaps more relevant than at any time in probably a half a century.