Winnice P. Clement (August 4, 1899 – August 1985)[1] was an American clerk. She was the Webster Parish Registrar of Voters in Minden, Louisiana for nearly 26 years, beginning in 1940.[2] During her tenure, she was targeted for removal by white supremacist organizations committed to keeping African Americans from voting. Despite their efforts, she persisted in office until 1966, after the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in Louisiana.
In 1956, a pro-segregation White Citizens' Council took actions to remove African American voters from the registration rolls, after African American voter registration increased from zero when she took office to nearly 2,000.[2][3] It had been customary to register white applicants without a test of their understanding of the Constitution[4] if they seemed literate, and Clement had applied the same standard to African American applicants.[3] After demands by the council (and their protests to Louisiana governor Robert Kennon), and a visit from the state supervisor of registration, Clement began strictly enforcing the law on February 23, 1956, which by March 8, 1956, resulted in the disqualification of 24 white applicants.[3]
Clement was then fired from her position by Governor Kennon, after the Council continued to protest, but in May 1956, she was reinstated by Governor Earl Long, who also worked with leaders in the Louisiana Senate to draft legislation to remove the literacy test provision, which had been adopted in 1898 to disenfranchise African American voters, with an "understanding" provision[4] intended to allow registrars to only use the test on African American applicants.[5][6][7] The proposed legislation also required a court order to remove voters from the registration rolls.[5] Purges of the voter rolls continued, and by 1962, about 100 African American voters were registered in Webster Parish.[2]
Clement was called before the United States Commission on Civil Rights and a federal grand jury to answer questions, subject to FBI inspections of her office,[8] and involved in years of litigation that included a 1963 injunction against the use of the test,[2] and later resulted in a March 14, 1966 order from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965. She retired on May 1, 1966, and as of July 1966, nearly 1,800 African Americans were registered to vote in Webster Parish.[2]
Clement was born on August 4, 1899. She died in August 1985.[9]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "1950 United States Federal Census". Ancestry. Retrieved 22 April 2024.
- ^ a b c d e Agan, John (July 18, 2016). "1966 a watershed year for Minden". Minden Press-Herald. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
- ^ a b c "Voting Laws Catch Some Whites". Daily World. March 8, 1956. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
- ^ a b "United States v. State of Louisiana, 225 F. Supp. 353 (E.D. La. 1963)". Justia. US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. December 31, 1963. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
A wall stands in Louisiana between registered voters and unregistered, eligible Negro voters. The wall is the State constitutional requirement that an applicant for registration "understand and give a reasonable interpretation of any section" of the Constitutions of Louisiana or of the United States. It is not the only wall of its kind, but since the Supreme Court's demolishment of the white primary, the interpretation test has been the highest, best-guarded, most effective barrier to Negro voting in Louisiana. It is not the only wall of its kind, but since the Supreme Court's demolishment of the white primary, the interpretation test has been the highest, best-guarded, most effective barrier to Negro voting in Louisiana.[1] [...] We hold: this wall, built to bar Negroes from access to the franchise, must come down. The understanding clause or interpretation test is not a literacy requirement. It has no rational relation to measuring the ability of an elector to read and write. It is a test of an elector's ability to interpret the Louisiana and United States Constitutions. Considering this law in its historical setting and considering too the actual operation and inescapable effect of the law, it is evident that the test is a sophisticated scheme to disfranchise Negroes. The test is unconstitutional as written and as administered." - via Pitts, Michael J. (2008). "The Voting Rights Act and the Era of Maintenance". Alabama Law Review. 59. SSRN 1105115. at 911
- ^ a b "Vote Literacy Ban Is Asked". Evening Star. Library of Congress. May 31, 1956. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
- ^ Agan, John A. (September 25, 2002). Minden Perseverance and Pride. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9781439630532 – via Google Books.
- ^ "Ousted Louisiana Official Stays". The New York Times. May 23, 1956.
- ^ Agan, John (February 5, 2019). "Turnover in city government not new". Minden Press-Herald. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
- ^ "U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014". Ancestry. Retrieved 22 April 2024.
External links
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