Getting Black Hoosiers to the polls

Historically, the Black vote holds a lot of power. The federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 ensured Black Americans could head to the polls without fear of discrimination, harassment, unnecessary poll taxes or literacy tests. However, Black Hoosiers were voting in Indiana long before that thanks to the 15th Amendment, which passed in 1870 and prohibited the denial of the right to vote based on race, color or previous condition. “The attempt to disenfranchise Black voters speak to the way in which Black voters have had such a unique impact on the running of the government, the policies that are passed, and things of that nature,” said Joseph Tucker Edmonds, professor of religious studies and Africana studies at Indiana University Indianapolis. Indiana also had one of the earliest election riots in 1876, where violent attempts were made to suppress Black voters. However, just five years later, in 1881, the state’s first Black legislator, James Sidney Hinton (R), was voted into office in Indiana. Black Hoosiers continued to show up to the polls, despite continued attempts to prevent them in the Jim Crow south, such as implementing poll taxes, subjecting would-be Black voters to impossible literacy tests and later attempts to...