When the United States Constitution was ratified (1789), a small number of
free blacks were among the voting citizens (male property owners) in some states.[1] Most black men in the
United States were, however, not able to exercise the right to vote until after the
American Civil War with the
Reconstruction Amendments. In 1870, the
15th Amendment was ratified to prohibit states from denying a male citizen the right to vote based on “race, color or previous condition of servitude." This was before former
Confederate and
slave states implemented "Jim Crow" regulations that had the effect of denying the vote to many Blacks.
"Black suffrage" in the
United States in the aftermath of the
American Civil War explicitly referred to the voting rights of only black men.[citation needed] Female suffrage, regardless of race, was only gradually introduced following the Civil War,
beginning with Wyoming in 1869.
The passage of the
19th Amendment, which was ratified by the
United States Congress on August 18 and certified as law on August 26, 1920 granted women the right to vote in all states. In fall 1920, many Black women showed up at the polls, but many existing hurdles for African Americans were particularly cumbersome in repressing .[2] Only after the passage of the
Twenty-fourth Amendment and the
Voting Rights Act in 1964 and 1965 did the exercise of the vote become more or less equal for Black women.
Beginning in
1265, a small number of landed aristocrats and gentry had the right to vote for members of the
Parliament of England and Knights of the Shire. From 1432, only
forty-shilling freeholders held the parliamentary franchise. Suffrage was restricted to males by custom rather than statute.[4]
Olaudah Equiano and the
London Corresponding Society (founded 1792) argued for expanded suffrage. Also see:Radicalism (historical). The vote was restricted to adult males and also by property qualifications, but never by race. The first black person known to have voted in a British election was
Ignatius Sancho who qualified in Westminster in 1774 and 1780.
The
Reform Act 1832 extended the vote to landed middle class men.
Incremental reform continued with various
Reform Acts,
The
West Indies Federation (1958–1962) was slated to become autonomous but never did; a number of its member states have since achieved autonomy.
Non-UK
Commonwealth citizens residing in the UK have full voting rights as they are recognised as citizens. Prior to the
British Nationality Act 1981 Commonwealth Citizens were officially called
British Subjects and always counted as such in law. When the first
British Nationality Act 1948 was passed it reconfirmed this right and also statutorily defined citizenship rights for
British Protected Persons which before 1948 was granted solely by royal prerogative unlike for British Subject/Commonwealth Citizens.
Republic of Ireland citizens, although not Commonwealth Citizens still enjoy full voting rights in the UK, occupying the unique position of Foreigners with British subject hood.
South Africa
Cape Colony
The
Cape Qualified Franchise restricted voting by property ownership but not explicitly by race.
In 1853, the Queen authorized a Cape Colony parliament, which drafted a
Constitution with no explicit racial restriction.
Under Prime Minister
Gordon Sprigg, the Colony passed the 1877 "Registration Bill", disenfranchising Black communal land owners.
The
Franchise and Ballot Act of 1892 raised the threshold for suffrage from £25 to £75, accomplishing de facto disenfranchisement of most non-White subjects, and also of poor whites (particularly
Afrikaners).
South Africa
gained control of the area during World War I. It eventually governed
South-West Africa under apartheid laws and divided the area into ten bantustans.
Many residents recognized
SWAPO, not South Africa, as the legitimate authority. The United Nations recognized SWAPO as Namibia's legitimate representative in 1972.
The
Constitution of Namibia, adopted in 1990, provides in Article 28 for "direct, universal and equal suffrage".
France
Before the Revolution, only some local elections were held, the first real national suffrage appeared in 1791.
From 1791, France installed several male suffrage systems, alternating between census and universal suffrage. In mainland France, there was no racial criterion to be a voter so technically from this date, Black (male) voters existed and received the same rights as non-Blacks. They were still rare as segregation in France was not based directly on skin color or racialism but on the status as a slave or as a free human. Later it would be based on status as a mainland citizen or as a colony citizen.
From there, through the first half of the 19th century, frequent changes in the national government caused the colonies (where most slaves were, as their presence was restricted in mainland France) to have different rules than mainland France, often illegally. Several uprising occurred in the colonies during this period and the colonial rules diverged considerably from mainland France.
In mainland France:
In 1794 the government abolished slavery.
In 1802 Napoleon Bonaparte re-established slavery and, possibly owing to his disagreements with
Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, a black general, forbade Blacks and people of mixed-ancestry (mulâtres) to enter mainland France.
In 1815 slave trade was abolished, but not slavery
In 1848 slavery is formally abolished in France and all slaves are freed.
In the
French Colonial Empire, however, most indigenous people were not recognized as full French citizens and therefore often did not have the right to vote:
Vincent Ogé, who had been working in Paris during the Revolution, returned to the island slave colony of
Saint-Domingue and demanded voting rights. Ogé led an insurrection in 1790 and was executed in 1791. Enslaved people took control of the island in the subsequent
Revolution and established the Republic of
Haiti. (Elections were held but
the democracy was not stable.)
France promoted a
model of assimilation according to which Blacks and indigenous people could gain voting (and other) rights by successfully conforming to French culture. These high-status Blacks were known as les
Évoluées.
People living in French colonies primarily fell under the Code de l'indigénat. Lesindigènes had some voting privileges, but these could be modified without their consent.
Following the Revolution of 1848, France granted limited representation to the
Four Communes of Senegal. Ordinary residents of these cities gained full voting rights in 1916 after the election of
Blaise Diagne.
Lamine Guèye (another Senegalese politician) also achieved expanded voting rights ("Loi Lamine Guèye") for people in the colonies.
^Walton Jr, Hanes; Puckett, Sherman C.; Deskins, Donald R., eds. (2012). The African American Electorate: A Statistical History. Vol. I Chap. 4. CQ Press. p. 84.
ISBN978-087289508-9.
Beckman, Ludvig (2008). "Who Should Vote? Conceptualizing Universal Suffrage in Studies of Democracy". Democratization. 15 (1): 29–48.
doi:
10.1080/13510340701768091.
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Paxton, Pamela; et al. (2003). "A half-century of suffrage: New data and a comparative analysis". Studies in Comparative International Development. 38 (1): 93–122.
doi:
10.1007/BF02686324.
S2CID154786777.
Robinson, George M. Fredrickson Edgar E. (1995). Black Liberation: A Comparative History of Black Ideologies in the United States and South Africa. Oxford University Press.
Sneider, Allison (2010). "The New Suffrage History: Voting Rights in International Perspective". History Compass. 8 (7): 692–703.
doi:
10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00689.x.