Black voters who grew up in the segregated South still feel the impact of Jim Crow laws, according to Upshot.
Data complied by the group indicates, for example, that in Georgia, Black adults who reached voting age before the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 are less likely to be registered to vote.
Additionally, the study showed that the percentage of registered and actual voters who are Black in Georgia and North Carolina—and most likely throughout the South—is lower than the percentage of the adult population who are Black among those old enough to have been disenfranchised for one election or more.
The gap, according to the report, closes among those who reached voting age soon after the voting rights law was enacted; younger Black voters have higher rates of participation in the electoral process than nonBlack voters, perhaps because of Barack Obama’s candidacy for presidency.
Jim Crow is the former practice of segregating Black people in the United States, mandating the segregation of public schools, public places and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants and drinking fountains for whites and Blacks. In addition, the U.S. military was segregated, as were federal workplaces, brought about in 1913 under President Woodrow Wilson, who was viewed as the leader of the progressive movement and who sought the support of Blacks but whose administration practiced overt racial discrimination in hiring, requiring candidates to submit photos.
The data indicates that the generation that grew up under Jim Crow’s influence remains under its influence.
