Raynors HCA 2015-11
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/3/2015
The documents include; Typed Letter Signed by “John Embrey” as US Attorney General and on such letterhead, May 24, 1911, 1pp., VG. Writing to A.J. Teataman, in small part “.. advising us of the conduct of election officers in excluding negroes from voting ...” ... plus, This is followed by a three page response, May 29, 1911 by Judge Charles J. Bonaparte (unsigned) detailing the basis for Federal action in this case. ... plus, a Telegraph sent by John Embry to the Department of Justice, in small part “Beal and Guinn exceeded authority under state law in refusing to allow negro voters to read and write section of Constitution and prove their qualifications ...” ... plus, a second Telegraph sent by John Embry to the Department of Justice, in small part “Beal and Guinn convicted by jury of Democrat and republican after extended trial and defense by able counsel, upon testimony showing that a number of negroes ... were denied right to vote ...” “Grandfather clauses” enacted by Southern states to limit black voting in the post-Reconstruction era, and clearly after passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, were implicitly designed to discriminate against potential black voters despite the absence of any overt language referring to race. Guinn v. United States was one of a cluster of cases decided in the second decade of the 20th Century in response to efforts to deny voting rights to Southern African Americans. At the time of its statehood in 1907, Oklahoma’s original Constitution allowed men of all races to vote. Within one year of statehood, however, the legislature amended the original State Constitution to provide for a literacy test, e.g., the ability to read and write any section of the Constitution of the State of Oklahoma.
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