Arkansas Race Statistics- Disfranchisement

Although Arkansas is often portrayed as a moderate, even progressive state in terms of its race relations, indicative statistics can sometimes tell a different story. For example, Arkansas is the only former confederate state to have never elected an African American to a statewide or federal office. African Americans held state offices during and after Reconstruction until 1883. After that, disfranchisement through the creation of a poll tax, and later all-white Democratic Party primaries, froze African Americans out of Arkansas politics. Not until Amendment Twenty-Four to the U.S. Constitution abolished the poll tax in 1964 did things change. By 1972 the first African American state senators and representatives in the twentieth century were elected to the Arkansas General Assembly. But winning elections beyond the state level has remained a glass ceiling for black politicians ever since. I’m John Kirk of the UALR History Department and this has been an Arkansas moment.