On this day, the South Carolina Constitutional Convention adopted a new state constitution designed to systematically suppress Black voting rights. Central to the document was the “understanding clause,” a subjective literacy requirement that allowed white registrars to arbitrarily decide if a person “understood” the Constitution. While appearing race-neutral, it was a tool to disqualify Black voters while allowing illiterate whites to vote.

This move was part of a wider pattern across the South in the 1890s, where states imposed:

• Literacy tests

• Poll taxes

• Grandfather clauses

• Property requirements

These laws effectively nullified the 15th Amendment, stripping most Black men of the right to vote and ushering in the Jim Crow era of racial segregation and political exclusion.