Local white supremacy fans Tuesday will not have to resort to such extremes are wee necessary back in the days when absolute white supremacy was a new quantity in this part of the country. Elisha B. Lewis, private secretary to Congressman Kitchin, today recalled one incident typical of many. An ebony resident was about to meet all legal requirements. It looked as if he were going to vote in spite of everything.
The negro knew who the governor was and could read and write. He had the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States doped out pretty well. He was handy with answers to all the questions the election authorities put to him. Finally, in desperation, he was asked to define the “writ of certiorari.”
Do you know what that is?” he was asked.
“No, suh,” he said, gloomly. “I expect it’s something to keep a nigger from voting.” He failed to qualify by one point.
From the front page of the Kinston Free Press, second edition, Monday, Nov. 6, 1922. Literacy laws did not apply to white people. A Bing search of the web states that "A writ of certiorari orders a lower court to deliver its record in a case so that the higher court may review it. The U.S. Supreme Court uses certiorari to select most of the cases it hears."
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