Silenced Voices: Remedying the Historical Suppression of Felons and the Black Vote

The disenfranchisement of felons in the United States evolved from a historical precedent brought to the Americas during colonization. Our country adopted the political philosophy that shaped criminal voting laws around the country—criminals are unable to govern themselves and therefore unable to govern a country; their participation in our government would be danger to the purity of the ballot box. With rising racial tensions after Reconstruction, preserving the purity of the ballot box became a preservation of the white vote. This paper argues that felon disenfranchisement became a tool to further suppress African American after poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses of the Jim Crow era were eliminated. To this day, due to the racial disparities in our criminal justice system, Black Americans are disproportionately impacted by felon disenfranchisement laws. In the past two decades, our country has been making strides in the right direction but more must be done to correct the injustices of the past.