Mississippi Voter Registration: 5 Percent Black Registration Through Systematic Terror

By 1955, only about 5 percent of eligible Black voters in Mississippi are registered despite being a majority of the population in many counties. Barriers include literacy tests administered subjectively, poll taxes, economic retaliation, physical violence, and murder. Registrars accept illiterate white applicants while rejecting college-educated Black applicants. In Humphreys County, where Black people are 70 percent of the population, not a single Black voter is registered in 1955.