What was the purpose of a poll tax?

The purpose of a pole tax is to make it difficult for all people to vote.

The poll tax had two purposes:

1). Raise a little bit of revenue for the city, county, or state.

2). Decrease the number of the non-rich riff-raff or the genuinely poor who would turn out to vote.

Today, poll taxes are illegal. So the party of the Rich has to turn to other methods, like ...

-- close the polls at 5:00 , so that working people who can't get time off to vote, won't.

-- require a government-issued photo-ID in order to vote.

-- make up specious reasons that favor the wealthy, to delete names from voter registration rolls.

- "the civil rights movements"

- "following the american civil war and abolition of slavery, the united states entered a period known as reconstruction, during which black americans continued to suffer from disenfranchisement, racial segregation, and economic oppression. beginning in the early 1950's, black americans launched a series of major campaigns of civil resistance, emphasizing the need for nonviolent protests and civil disobedience."

"such as the montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56, a campaign launched by rosa parks against the policy of racial segregation of the public transit system in alabama. “sit-ins” became popular across the american south, particularly in greensboro, north carolina, increase national sentiment."

- "the counterculture movement"

- "counterculture began to develop in the united states following the rise of conformity in american culture during the 1950s. by 1963, youth, particularly those of the white middle class, began rejecting the cultural standards and normality of their parents, opting for progressive attitudes instead. the movement gained momentum as the civil rights movement became increasingly successful and as the u.s. military intervention of vietnam began to take a negative turn."

"hippie counterculture moved further into popular culture following the summer of love in 1967 when thousands of people came together in the haight-ashbury neighborhood of san francisco. along with greenwich village in new york city, haight-ashbury became a hub for the counterculture movement."