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TASK FORCE TO STUDY THE HISTORY AND LEGACY OF SLAVERY IN MARYLAND (Final Report) 1999/12/31 MdHR 991422 MdHR 991422, Image No: 157 Print image (40K) |
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TASK FORCE TO STUDY THE HISTORY AND LEGACY OF SLAVERY IN MARYLAND (Final Report) 1999/12/31 MdHR 991422 MdHR 991422, Image No: 157 Print image (40K) |
| 148 blacks in 1904, 1908, and 1911, these efforts were only turned back as a result of subsequent statewide referendums. However, preventing felons from having full rights of citizens even after they have served their terms, including voting, has remained a part of Maryland history associated with Reconstruction racism and oppression. It is historically tied to poll tax legislation, literacy tests, other measures that were intended to have the effect of reducing the voting strength of the poor and of ethnic minorities associated with the period from around 1890 to 1910 when Democrats began to reassert control of southern legislatures and, in that process, to disenfranchise as many blacks as possible. In contrast to this throw-back to Reconstruction which still obtains in Maryland, the automatic restoration of citizenship rights to vote after a felon has completed his or her sentence, or within a short specified time thereafter, providing that no new felon conviction has occurred is what happens in forty-two other states and the District of Columbia. Moreover, the fact that a disproportionate number of law-abiding Marylanders who are African Americans are victimized by crimes in some important ways probably also aggravates their sense of |