Are You Smarter than a Literacy Test?

In 1920, Cora Cottman joined scores of other American women applying to vote for the very first time following the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Like so many others, she sent her registration paperwork to the registrar for her district, the Harrison precinct of Charles City County, in the hopes that her registration would be completed in time for the upcoming November election. But Cora also had to complete an additional step that many of her fellow applicants did not have to face. Cora Cottman was a Black woman, and that meant she had to pass a literacy test.

“Literacy test” may be a little misleading. Originally, the term was used to describe exactly what you might expect—a test that required applicants to prove that they were able to read before they were able to register to vote. Common in the wake of the Civil War, such tests were largely meant to discriminate against formerly enslaved men, who were frequently illiterate. That said, poor white men were also often blocked by such measures. Work-arounds like grandfather clauses and more flexible knowledge requirements were created to compensate. As a result, “literacy test” broadened into a catch-all name for any of the discriminatory, knowledge-based tests that were used to prevent Black voting in the Jim Crow-era South. These literacy tests were often left up to the discretion of the individual tester, both in terms of what were considered “passing” answers and who was required to take the tests to begin with.¹

In Virginia, this shift was codified by the Virginia Constitution of 1902. The primary purpose of this constitution was to disenfranchise the large number of Black Virginian men who had become eligible to vote following the passage of the 15th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.² Among a long list of extremely restrictive voter regulations was the requirement that an applicant “answer on oath any and all questions affecting his qualifications as an elector, submitted, to him by the officers of registration, which questions, and his answers thereto, shall be reduced to writing, certified by the said officers, and preserved as a part of their official records.”³

What knowledge did the registrar for the Harrison precinct of Charles City County decide was the most important for determining the qualifications of the Black women and men applying to vote in his district in 1920? Names. Just names.

He would ask Black applicants for the names of five random government officials for the county, state, and/or the country. As seen in the records for Cora Cottman, the questions could range from fairly common knowledge (“Who is the governor of your state?”) to the much more obscure (“Who is the commissioner of revenue for your county?”). The exact questions would vary from person to person, likely to prevent applicants from collaborating. Their answers were saved as part of their official election records and were recently uncovered during the processing of Charles City County’s List of Colored Voters, 1902-1923 circa, for the Harrison Precinct; Harrison Magisterial District. Notably, similar questions were not found in records from the List of White Voters for the same time period and district.

It’s been over a century and more than twenty-five presidential election cycles since Cora Cottman and her fellow Black voter applicants found themselves facing down the Charles City County registrar’s version of a literacy test. As the most recent election cycle approaches this November, we’ve put together a compilation of those 1920 questions, along with the 2024 answers. Without searching the internet or phoning a friend, try your hand at the questions below and see how you might have fared facing up against some of the same barriers. Click on each question to see the answer.

If you were able to answer all of the above questions on your own, give yourself a well-deserved round of applause! But if there were any questions that you may have struggled with, here are a few bonus questions for you to consider: How do you think you would have found the answers in a time before online resources and easily searchable government databases? What does knowing the names of those officials have to do with your qualifications as a voter, anyway? How would you have felt if those questions had stopped you from exercising what is supposed to be your Constitutional right as a U.S. citizen?

Literacy tests and other forms of racially focused voter disenfranchisement remained common in Virginia and the rest of the South until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which guaranteed that no person would be denied the right to vote based on their race. The clause that allowed the Charles City County registrar and other election officials to ask such discriminatory questions would remain part of Virginia’s state constitution until it was replaced by the current state constitution in 1971.⁴

As for Cora Cottman? We can’t say for sure what other voting discrimination she might have faced after this test, or what her election experiences might have been like in the years that followed. But we do know the results of her voter application in 1920. Cora was successfully able to answer all five of the questions posed to her by the registrar. On October 2, 1920, she took a registration oath created specifically for newly enfranchised women, and her name was entered into Charles City County’s List of Colored Voters, 1902-1923 circa, for the Harrison Precinct; Harrison Magisterial District.