“People in Action: Literacy Bill Dies”
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: May 26, 1962
Location: New York, N.Y.
Genre: Published Article
Topic: Voter registration
Details
Incensed by Congress’s failure to pass a bill banning literacy test requirements for voter registration, King criticizes President Kennedy for not ensuring its success, noting that “it may well be that we will have to repent in this generation not merely for the bitter words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.” Mentioning probable global news coverage of the debate, King insists that “any democratic nation that cannot guarantee all of its citizens the elemental right to vote is suffering from a moral sickness that must be cured if it is to survive.”1 The following article was published in the New York Amsterdam News.
A few days ago newspapers across the country carried the headlines, “Literacy Bill Dies in Senate.” This disappointing headline referred to the second attempt in less than a week to shut off debate on a civil rights bill. By a vote of 54–42 the Senate refused to impose cloture (limit debate) and the bill in question, the administration’s literacy test measure, was thereby a dead issue.2
This measure was designed to end discriminatory use of literacy tests by southern voting registrars.
It would have declared anyone with a sixth grade education literate for voting purposes. No honest person can deny the critical need for such a measure. The so called literacy tests have been used in the most vicious and undemocratic manner to prevent Negroes across the South from becoming registered.
Negroes with college degrees, have been denied the right to vote because they were not “literate” enough.3 Even more ludicrous is the fact that there have been Negroes with Ph.D. degrees who could not qualify as registered voters because they were not literate according to southern registrars.4
Yet, in spite of these obvious and notorious expressions of discrimination against Negroes, the highest legislative body of the nation refused to pass a bill that would have been just a step in guaranteeing the right to vote.
Lessons
There are several lessons that we should learn from the defeat of this all-important measure. First it reminds us anew that the Senate rules must be changed if any meaningful civil rights legislation is ever to be enacted. The two-thirds cloture rule is the legislative incinerator that burns to ashes all strong civil rights bills.
It provides a legal channel through which a recalcitrant minority can block and even bury the wishes of a right thinking majority. For years the southern senators have relied on this rule to stall any legislation that would destroy the backward and brutal institutions of segregation and discrimination. Unless Senate rule 22 is changed we will continue to see civil rights bills fade into a tragic death.5
The defeat of the literacy bill also reveals that the forces of goodwill must become more vigorous. We must face the tragic fact that this bill failed to pass because those who were for it were far less vigorous, forthright and determined than those who were against it.
Kennedy Inactive
It was a clear and pathetic example of the children of darkness being more zealous and unrelenting than the children of light.
This lack of forthrightness was especially present in the White House. I have no doubt that President Kennedy wanted the bill, but he did very little, if anything, in its behalf.
He never spoke out for its passage nor did he seek to arouse national public opinion on the issues involved.6 Even the Senate Majority Leader, Mr. Mansfield, who talked so eloquently for the need of the measure, made the hours for the debate so brief each day that the southern senators had little possibilities of tiring out.7
Somewhere along the way men of goodwill must come to see that we are struggling against a stubborn and unyielding adversary. Its massive resistance must be met with massive insistance. The lovers of democracy are still all too silent and timid.
It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation not merely for the bitter words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
No Fulfillment
A third thing revealed in the defeat of the literacy bill is the agonizing fact that the American Dream is still far from fullfilment. Any democratic nation that cannot guarantee all of its citizens the elemental right to vote is suffering from a moral sickness that must be cured if it is to survive. I suspect that the death of the literacy bill was reported in newspapers over the world, yes in Asia and Africa.
Think of the response of inhabitants of the newly independent nations in Africa when they read that an American Negro is not supported in his efforts to vote by this nation’s highest legislative body.
The Omission
Think of the response of the teeming millions in India when they read that an American Negro with a Ph.D. degree is denied the right to vote, knowing that the most illiterate peasant in India can vote with no restrictions.
No longer can America preach democracy abroad—and practice the democracy at home—and practice the very opposite of that democracy at abroad. Yes, the headlines were correct—the literacy bill died in the Senate.
But those headlines omitted something that we must never forget: when the literacy bill died a bit of the American Dream died and it will never be resurrected until that day emerges when every Negro is guaranteed the right to vote.
1. Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP, also criticized the Senate’s failure to pass the literacy test bill in his New York Amsterdam News column: “How good is our political system if it not only cannot deliver on basic human rights, but actually and actively perpetuates that meanest of exploitation—discrimination based upon skin color?” (“How Long? How Long?,” New York Amsterdam News, 19 May 1962).
2. On 9 May, the Senate voted 53–43 against imposing cloture, which required a two-thirds majority vote, to end the filibuster (Anthony Lewis, “Senate Rejects Bid for Closure; Right Bill Dead,” New York Times, 10 May 1962). The following week, a second attempt to impose cloture also failed by a vote of 52–42 (“Senate Rejects New Move to End Debate on Rights,” New York Times, 15 May 1962).
3. In September 1958, the Justice Department filed an injunction against registrars in Terrell County, Georgia, for discrimination against African Americans, naming five black college graduates who failed the literacy test. According to chairman of the board of registrars J. G. Raines, the applicants were disqualified for writing illegibly or mispronouncing and slurring words (Claude Sitton, “Georgia Vote Aide Says He Knew Rejected Negroes Held Degrees,” New York Times, 6 September 1958).
4. Professors Daniel Wynn, J. N. Blankenship, and S. T. Nero testified before the Volunteer Civil Rights Commission that they had attempted to register to vote, but their applications had been denied. Blankenship, who was from Saline, Louisiana, also noted that other teachers in his area with M.A. or Ph.D. degrees had their applications denied (“Transcript of proceedings before the Volunteer Civil Rights Commission,” 31 January 1960).
5. Adopted in 1917 at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson, Senate Rule 22 allowed for the ending of debate with a two-thirds majority vote. Even with the cloture rule, the filibuster remained an effective means to block legislation because a two-thirds majority was difficult to attain. When the Senate convened in early January 1961, a motion to change the requirements for cloture from two-thirds present and voting to sixty percent was tabled by a 50–46 vote. When the bill was brought up nine months later, the Senate voted 43–37 against imposing cloture, effectively dooming the bill. In an article for The Nation, King argued that if Kennedy had actively campaigned for the bill in January, “a historic victory would have resulted” (“Fumbling on the New Frontier,” 3 March 1962, p. 416 in this volume).
6. Journalist Anthony Lewis, who covered the debate on the bill for the New York Times, argued that Kennedy “said little in its behalf and did not make it a major concern or attempt to rouse the public in its behalf” (“Civil Rights Defeat,” New York Times, 11 May 1962). Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy did testify on behalf of the bill on 10 April, arguing that “there was ample proof” of racial discrimination in voter registration (Anthony Lewis, “Robert Kennedy Debates Ervin on Literacy Tests,” New York Times, 11 April 1962).
7. Michael Mansfield (1903–2001) served as the Senate majority leader from 1961–1977. Between 25 April and 15 May, the Senate met for an average of six hours per day to discuss the bill, and avoided weekend debates. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson criticized the Senate’s limited debate hours, saying that when he was Senate majority leader, “we stayed right at it and we passed a bill” (“Johnson Jabs Leadership on Rights Defeat,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 20 May 1962).
Source: New York Amsterdam News, 26 May 1962.