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Court Upholds Mississippi’s Jim Crow Voting Law

The law was originally adopted by white-supremacist leaders to prohibit Black people from taking part in elections for life.

The U.S. Fifth Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a Jim Crow law adopted by white-supremacist leaders in 1890 designed to prohibit Black people from voting for life. The conservative majority of the court said the law was “steeped in racism,” but decided that the state had made enough changes to it over its 132-year history that its racist origins had been transcended. At issue is Section 241 of the Mississippi Constitution, in which white lawmakers at the time chose a list of offenses they believed Black people were more likely to commit, and made those crimes punishable with permanent disenfranchisement. Crimes included burglary, theft, and arson, among others, though burglary was later dropped and the “‘non-black’ crimes of ‘murder’ and rape’” were added, the 5th Circuit’s opinion notes. A 2018 analysis found that the law was still disproportionately disenfranchising Black people compared to white Mississippians.