Last Saturday night was a shocking beginning to the Tea Party Convention held in Nashville, Tennessee at the Gaylord Entertainment Center. Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo opened the convention by calling for voter literacy tests, which were used selectively in the Jim Crow South to deny the black vote.

Literacy tests were used to great effect, and were required at the poll worker’s discretion. The poll workers in the Jim Crow South were white. If a white voter wished to cast a vote, they were not required to pass a literacy test. If a black voter came to the polls, the worker would require him or her to pass a “civics literacy test” in order to vote. Following are some of the actual questions that appeared on Alabama literacy tests between 1890 and 1966 were asked only to black voters. See if you could have passed the test and voted in the Jim Crow South:

1. If a person charged with treason denies his guilt, how many persons must testify against him before he can be convicted?

2. In what year did Congress gain the right to prohibit the migration of persons to the states?

3. The power of granting patents, that is os securing to inventors the exclusive right of their discoveries, is given to the Congress for the purpose of ______________.

How did you do? Not too well? Well, during Jim Crow you wouldn’t have to worry about taking this test at all if you were white. Now a Republican Congressman wishes to return our country to the 1890’s, and he received massive applause from his Tea Party audience. It happened right here in Middle Tennessee.