The Reddix Chronicles 3

How Mae Lucky was able to purge over 3,000 Black voters off Ouachita voter's registration.

Make it legal...pass a law! That’s how it was done in 1956, and that is the way it is done today. All you need is a political consensus to write an amendment and then vote it into law. It doesn’t matter if it is morally or socially correct…it just has to be law. Page 9 of proposed decree document 2548, United States vs. State of Louisiana et.al, section 8.4 reads, “In early 1956 state officials and private White citizens launched an all-out program to maintain racial segregation in Louisiana. This program focused on the disenfranchisement of the Negroes by removing them from voter rolls and by subjecting them to the Interpretation Test as a voter qualification." The legislators of Louisiana went into a closed session in which no written records were kept. It was there they proposed laws for discriminating against the “Negro” for the expressed purpose of “solving our problem” of desegregation. The White Citizen Council wanted to keep Louisiana totally segregated, so they devised laws to dilute or totally rid the “Negro” vote. By disenfranchising the “Negro” voter, they planned to keep Louisiana from complying with the Supreme Courts' decision to desegregate and integrate its citizens. During that time period, Louisiana would have its citizens re-register to vote every four years. Some parishes had adopted permanent registrations where a voter would not have to re-register. In order to help disenfranchise the Negro voter, a law was put into place that would allow a voter to be easily challenged, which would allow the Registrar to purge them from the rolls. They would then have to re-register. Any two citizens could file an affidavit and challenge another citizen. In order to re-register, the applicant would have to pass an “Interpretation Test” after proving they were legal citizens of Louisiana. If the Registrar recognized them, they would be allowed to register, or if another “White Citizen” vouched for them, they would be allowed to re-register. 25 test questions of the Louisiana Constitution were chosen to be administered to applicants. The Registrar would arbitrarily choose the card for which the voter would have to write an answer. If the voter did not answer in a precise way, the Registrar would reject their application. It was found that the White applications were given either card #2 or #8. These were very easy questions, whereas Black applicants were given questions that needed lawyers to interpret them. It is impossible today to fully understand how easy it was to pass and implement such evil laws. We take for granted our hard won, blood fought rights to vote. The half has not been told of the crimes and sacrifices of the past but keep reading as we dissect the jaded history of Ouachita Parish, voter registration qualifications, and the Black voter.