The End of the Civil War and the Decline of Viva Voce Voting

In the early years of the republic, voting by voice (“viva voce”), in which all voters publicly called out the names of their preferred candidates while election clerks recorded those choices in official pollbooks, was common. Voice voting fell from favor and, at the end of the Civil War, the main bastion of viva voce voting, Virginia, was forced to give it up to rejoin the Union. Only in Kentucky did viva voce voting survive, where it remained until 1892. Read more

The Enactment of the 15th Amendment

In 1870, the 15th Amendment added a guarantee of African American voting rights to the US Constitution. By the early 1900s, the 15th Amendment had proven ineffective against a series of discriminatory Jim Crow laws, but, between 1870 and 1900, there was a generation of African Americans who proudly and determinedly exercised the franchise. Read more

The First Election with African American Voters

Less than a month after the certification of the 15th Amendment, Todd County voters — including newly enfranchised African Americans — headed to the polls in a special election to fill the vacant 3rd District seat for the House of Representatives. More than 700 black men cast their votes that day in the county, 96% for the Republican candidate. Read more

Jerry Mimms

Jerry Mimms, a 30-year-old farm laborer, was the first African American to vote in the Hadensville precinct in the special election for Kentucky’s 3rd District. He led a group of about 50 African American voters, each of whom called out their votes for the Republican. Read more

Celebrating the 15th Amendment

Huge celebrations accompanied the passage of the 15th Amendment across the United States. Thousands of African Americans participated in parades to celebrate the “greatest gain of the Civil War”. Read more

Garrard County’s First Election with African American Voters

In August 1870, Garrard County voters - including newly enfranchised African Americans - headed to the polls to fill nine county offices, including the County Judge (the most powerful office in the county), sheriff, and jailor. In Lancaster precinct, 98% of the 256 African American voters cast votes for the Republican candidate for County Judge, George Denny, Jr. Read more

Philip Dunn

Philip Dunn, a 33-year-old grocer from Lancaster township, was the fourth African American to cast a vote in Lancaster. Like the three black men before him, he voted a straight Republican ticket, including a vote for George Denny, Jr. for County Judge. Read more

Judge George Denny, Jr.

George Denny, Jr, a formidable Republican organizer, ran for the seat of County Judge, the most powerful office in the County, in the August 1, 1870 election. On the back of new African American voters, Denny Jr. won victory in a Democratic county. An unlikely Republican Party alliance of newly enfranchised black voters and white Republicans would dominate county politics until the turn of the century. Read more

Isham Link

Isham Link, a black man born into slavery around 1852, worked as a laborer on a nearby farm owned by a wealthy white man when the Census taker made his way around Fairview on September 1, 1870. Less than four years later, Isham was dead at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan after the second of two brutal attacks on their cabin by masked Klansman on horseback. Read more

Enthusiastic African American Participation in Todd County Elections

In August 1872, voters headed to the polls to elect two key local law enforcement positions: county attorney and sheriff. Samuel W. Kennedy, a 48-year-old lawyer from Elkton, overwhelmingly won the office of county attorney: 1,415 to 334 votes. In Elkton, black turnout was seven points higher than white, with 67% of eligible black men voting and, of those, 99.5% voting for Kennedy over his rival, Mr. Walker. Read more

A KKK Beating

Late in the evening of June 30, 1874, fifteen to twenty masked Klansmen broke into a cabin occupied by Mattie and Isham Link, a recently married African American couple, and savagely beat them. The Ku Klux Klan were a vicious force in Todd County, terrorizing residents in the mid-1870s.
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The Kennedy — Sellers Election Riot

In Lancaster, the defeat of an incumbent Democrat in the August 1874 election escalated into a racially-divided siege, which lasted for weeks and involved federal troops and state militia.
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KKK Violence in Todd County

Over the course of 1874 and into 1875, the Ku Klux Klan terrorized African Americans in Todd County, with a particular focus on the family of assertive women. Late on August 20, 1874, the KKK attacked on horseback and abducted Mattie Link, who had asserted her legal rights in court as part of an attempt to reclaim her children out of bondage. Mattie’s husband, Isham, was executed, along with a 12-year-old African American boy, Monroe Christian.
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Enthusiastic African American Participation in Garrard County Elections

In August 1876, Garrard County voters headed to the polls to elect three local law enforcement positions: sheriff, constable, and marshal. William M. Kirby, a white 34-year-old merchant resident of Lancaster township, overwhelmingly won the office of sheriff, winning over 90% of the vote in the Lancaster precinct. All but one of the 261 African American men who voted in the sheriff’s race voted for Kirby over his rival R. F. Scott, a small farm owner in the eastern outreach of Lancaster precinct. Turnout of black men in Lancaster precinct was 23 points higher than turnout of white men (82% vs 59%).
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Very Local Elections in Todd County

On May 4, 1878, Calvin Bradly made his annual trek to the Allensville train depot to vote in the town election with his neighbor, Dick Snyder. Bradly, a 52-year-old brickmason, and Snyder were one of 22 black voters that attended the poll that day. Allensville elections were a very local affair: there were only 70 voters in total and voters and candidates were known to all. Both Bradly and Snyder lived just a few doors down from Phillip Hirshfield, an incumbent candidate for town trustee. Hirshfield was a wealthy store owner, running the local dry good stores. Snyder voted for his neighbor, Hirshfield; Bradly did not.

Neighbors vote together in the 1879 Gubernatorial Election

On August 4, 1879, voters across Kentucky headed to the polls in the gubernatorial contest between Democrat Luke P. Blackburn, a physician who had been accused of leading a Civil War plot to infect Northern cities with yellow fever, and Republican Walter Evans. Blackburn won convincingly across the state, but not in Garrard County, thanks to a strong cross-racial Republican alliance. In Buckeye precinct, black neighbors and family members, like William and Jesse Aldridge, Samuel Simpson, and Sanford Mayfield, headed to the polls together and announced their votes in front of each other.

The 1880 Census

On June 10, 1880, the local census taker began trekking through Allensville to enumerate every resident. The first house he visited that morning was that of the Wooldridges, on the edge of town. Brothers Thomas, 22, and John, a 26-year-old druggist, resided there, with their mother and grandfather. Next door lived Oscar M. Grinter, also a druggist. Just one month earlier, Thomas, John, and Oscar had headed to the polls together to vote aloud and in front of each other for a different slate of candidates for police judge and town trustees.

Nominating the First Black Candidate in Garrard County

In Spring 1882, the Garrard County Republican Party’s nominating committee was deadlocked. The committee called a “mass convention” for Saturday, May 6. In a tumultuous meeting, in which black participants outnumbered whites three to one, John Perkins, a black man, won the nomination for jailer. The nomination was instantly divisive, and the Republican Party was trounced at the August election.
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The Bryantsville Election Riot

At the August 6, 1883 gubernatorial election in the Bryantsville precinct, violence broke out. A rumor circulated that African American men were preventing white Democrats from voting. A group of armed Democrats confronted three black Republicans opposite the polling station and a melee ensued. Five African American men were killed and several wounded.
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The 1886 election in Brandy Springs, Garrard County

On August 2, 1886, Garrard County voters headed to the polls to elect state judicial and county executive offices. At the head of the Democratic ticket, for the office of Superior Court Judge, was Joseph Barbour. Barbour, a lawyer who had never run for office before, was elected handsomely. On that summer day in the Brandy Springs precinct, black voters made up little more than a quarter of voters. Only two of the 142 black voters who voted did so for Barbour. Green Mullins, a 27-year-old laborer from Virginia, was one of the two. We’ll never know why Mullins voted Democrat, but we do know he voted among a group of wealthy white landowners, including Ben G. Mullins.

Few African Americans participate in the1886 election in Allensville, Todd County

On May 1, 1886, town clerk and local grocer, Claude E. Haddox, oversaw the annual Allensville town trustee election. Only 25 men turned out to vote, less than half the number (56) who turned out in 1880. Only 6% of eligible black men attended the poll, compared to 22% of white men. This reflected a precipitous drop from the 1880 town trustee election, in which 21 (11%) black men turned out (compared to 18% of eligible white men). All four black voters in 1886 voted for Haddox, who was running for trustee. Sam Mart, a 42-year-old black laborer was among them. Mart was a frequent voter and longtime supporter of Haddox, having voted for him in at least six town trustee elections over the past decade.

The 1888 presidential election in Garrard County

On Tuesday, November 6, 1888, the men of Garrard County headed to the polls to choose between Republican presidential nominee Benjamin Harrison and incumbent Democratic President Grover Cleveland. Harrison won the county, 1220 votes to 1124. Poll books survive for the Buckeye and Bryantsville precincts and show that African American men eagerly turned out for Harrison. Every single one of the 67 black voters who turned out voted Republican in Buckeye, helping Harrison win the precinct handsomely. In Bryantsville, the 125 black Harrison votes were not enough to overcome the turnout of white Democrats, with Cleveland winning the precinct 211 to 199 votes.

Kentucky drafts a new constitution and ends viva voce voting

In September 1890, constitutional convention delegates assembled in the state capital, Frankfort, to rewrite Kentucky’s state constitution. They spent months debating the provisions of the new constitution, eventually deciding on a draft that removed the right to own slaves, abolished two courts and replaced them with a new court, expanded the use of term limits, allowed localities to levy a poll tax, changed the election date, and abandoned viva voce voting in favor of the Australian ballot.
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