Harvard students take the 1964 Louisiana Literacy Test that black voters had to pass before being allowed to go to the polls - and every single person FAILED

  • Group of Harvard students recently sat the notorious 1964 Louisiana Literacy Test
  • Just 50 years ago, states in the South issued similar test to voters who couldn't provide proof of a fifth grade education
  • Test was intended to disenfranchise African-Americans, who in order to pass had to correctly answer all 30 questions in 10 minutes
  • Despite their Ivy League pedigree, none of the students managed to pass the test or make sense of the vague questions

By DAVID MCCORMACK FOR MAILONLINE

Published: | Updated:

A group of Harvard students were recently asked by their tutor to sit the 1964 Louisiana Literacy Test - a notorious document with confusing questions that was used to stop black citizens from voting. 

Just 50 years ago, states in the South asked voters who couldn't provide proof of a fifth grade education to pass the test in order to be eligible to cast a ballot.

The test was intended to disenfranchise African-Americans, who in order to pass had to correctly answer all 30 questions in 10 minutes.

Despite their Ivy League pedigree, none of the students managed to pass the test and their reactions as they struggled to make sense of the obtuse questions was filmed. 

Scroll down for video and to take the test yourself 

A group of Harvard students were recently asked by their tutor to sit the notorious 1964 Louisiana Literacy Test, a document once used to test the eligibility of certain people to vote

A group of Harvard students were recently asked by their tutor to sit the notorious 1964 Louisiana Literacy Test, a document once used to test the eligibility of certain people to vote

All of the students failed to pass the test which was intended to disenfranchise African-Americans some 50 years ago. A group of African-American voters stand in line to vote in Baltimore in 1964, left

The vague questions included requests to 'spell backwards, forwards,' and 'print the word vote upside down, but in the right order.'

According to Carl Miller, a resident tutor at Harvard and a fellow at the law school, the purpose of sitting the test was to learn about how unjustly rigged the electoral process was at that time. 

'Exactly 50 years ago, states in the American South issued this exact test to any voter who could not "prove a fifth grade education,'" said Miller.

A student reacts to hearing that he has failed to pass the 1964 Louisiana Literacy Test

A student reacts to hearing that he has failed to pass the 1964 Louisiana Literacy Test

Despite their Ivy League pedigree, none of the students managed to pass the test and their reactions as they struggled to make sense of the obtuse questions was filmed

Despite their Ivy League pedigree, none of the students managed to pass the test and their reactions as they struggled to make sense of the obtuse questions was filmed

'Unsurprisingly, the only people who ever saw this test were blacks and, to a lesser extent, poor whites trying to vote in the South.'

With his video experiment, Miller thought it would be interesting to see if some of the 'brightest young minds in the world' could pass a literacy exam meant to prove that a person had at least a fifth-grade education. 

Miller said not a single one of his student passed the exam, because it was designed in such a way that each question could be interpreted as wrong by the registrar official looking over the answers.

'Louisiana’s literacy test was designed to be failed. Just like all the other literacy tests issued in the South at the time, this test was not about testing literacy at all. It was a legitimate sounding, but devious measure that the State of Louisiana used to disenfranchise people that had the wrong skin tone or belonged to the wrong social class,' he said. 

'And just like that, countless black and poor white voters in the South were disenfranchised.'

He hopes his students will now appreciate the importance of exercising their constitutional right to vote. 

With his video experiment, Harvard tutor Miller thought it would be interesting to see if some of the 'brightest young minds in the world' could pass a literacy exam meant to prove that someone had at least a fifth-grade education

With his video experiment, Harvard tutor Miller thought it would be interesting to see if some of the 'brightest young minds in the world' could pass a literacy exam meant to prove that someone had at least a fifth-grade education

NOW TAKE THE TEST FOR YOURSELF...

The vague questions included requests to 'spell backwards, forwards,' and 'print the word vote upside down, but in the right order'

The vague questions included requests to 'spell backwards, forwards,' and 'print the word vote upside down, but in the right order'

The test was intended to disenfranchise African-Americans, who in order to pass had to correctly answer all 30 questions in 10 minutes

The test was intended to disenfranchise African-Americans, who in order to pass had to correctly answer all 30 questions in 10 minutes

Miller said not a single one of his student passed the exam, because it was designed in such a way that each question could be interpreted as wrong by the registrar official looking over the answers

Miller said not a single one of his student passed the exam, because it was designed in such a way that each question could be interpreted as wrong by the registrar official looking over the answers

 

 

 

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