The History of Voting Rights and Racial Discrimination in Texas: 1865-1965

ABSTRACT :The struggle for voting rights juxtaposed with racial discrimination in America was and isprevalent in numerous parts of the United States and, in some states, the discrimination is more prevalent than inother states. For historical reasons, the Southern states such as Texas have a much deeper racialized climate anddiscrimination history than the Northern states. Even after the Civil War ended in 1865, Texas was the last statein the Union to recognize the formal emancipation of slavery and was reluctant to given in to federalenforcement. However, while great civil rights progress has been made for minorities, especially Blacks to gainfull civil rights, Texas has made valiant efforts to roll back those rights and to prevent Blacks, Hispanics,Indigenous Americans and other minorities from engaging in voting and thus continuing to harm their futurecivil participation in our democracy. Our paper will discuss the historical background of the struggle for votingrights in Texas.