识字测试测量一个人的阅读和写作能力。从19世纪开始，在美国南部各州的选民登记过程中使用了扫盲测试，意图剥夺黑人选民的选举权。 1917年，随着“移民法”的通过，扫盲测试也被纳入美国移民程序，至今仍在使用。从历史上看，扫盲测试已经使美国的种族和族裔边缘化合法化。扫盲测试被引入南方的投票过程中，采用了吉姆克劳法。吉姆克劳法律是19世纪70年代后期由南部和边境州颁布的州和地方法律和法规，以阻止非洲裔美国人在重建后的南方投票权（1865-1877）。它们旨在使白人和黑人分开，剥夺黑人选民的权利，并使黑人被征服，破坏美国宪法第14和第15修正案。尽管1868年批准了第14修正案，但给予“包括前奴隶在内的所有在美国出生或入籍的人”以及1870年批准第15修正案的公民身份，该修正案专门赋予非洲裔美国人投票权，南方边境国家继续设法让种族少数群体不参与投票。他们利用选举舞弊和暴力来恐吓非洲裔美国选民，并制定了吉姆克劳法律，以促进种族隔离。在重建之后的二十年里，非裔美国人失去了在重建期间获得的许多合法权利。甚至美国最高法院“也帮助破坏了黑人的宪法保护与臭名昭着的Plessy v.Ferguson（1896）案，这使吉姆克劳法律和吉姆克劳的生活方式合法化。”在这种情况下，最高法院维持黑人和白人的公共设施可以“分开但相等。”根据这一决定，整个南方很快成为公共设施必须分开的法律。在重建期间所做的许多改变被证明是短暂的，最高法院继续在其决定中维护种族歧视和隔离，从而使南方各州自由统治对未来选民进行扫盲测试和各种投票限制，歧视反对黑人选民。但种族主义不只是在南方重演。虽然吉姆克劳法是南方现象，但他们背后的情绪是全国性的。北方也出现了种族主义的重新抬头，以及“正在出现的国家，甚至是国际的共识（无论如何都是白人），重建是一个严重的错误。”
英国伦敦大学学院教育学Essay代写:什么是识字测试？
A literacy test measures a person’s proficiency in reading and writing. Beginning in the 19th century, literacy tests were used in the voter registration process in southern states of the U.S. with the intent to disenfranchise black voters. In 1917, with the passing of the Immigration Act, literacy tests were also included in the U.S. immigration process, and are still used today. Historically, literacy tests have served to legitimize racial and ethnic marginalization in the U.S. Literacy tests were introduced into the voting process in the South with the Jim Crow laws. Jim Crow laws were state and local laws and statutes enacted by southern and border states in the late 1870s to deny African Americans the right to vote in the South following Reconstruction (1865-1877). They were designed to keep whites and blacks segregated, to disenfranchise black voters, and to keep blacks subjugated, undermining the 14th and 15th Amendments of the United States Constitution. Despite the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868, granting citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” which included former slaves, and the ratification of the 15th Amendment in 1870, which specifically gave African Americans the right to vote, Southern and Border states continued to find ways to keep racial minorities from voting. They used electoral fraud and violence to intimidate African American voters, and created Jim Crow laws to promote racial segregation. During the twenty years following Reconstruction, African Americans lost many of the legal rights that had been gained during Reconstruction. Even the Supreme Court of the United States “helped undermine the Constitutional protections of blacks with the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) case, which legitimized Jim Crow laws and the Jim Crow way of life.” In this case, the Supreme Court maintained that public facilities for blacks and whites could be “separate but equal.” Following this decision, it soon became the law throughout the South that public facilities had to be separate. Many of the changes made during Reconstruction proved to be short-lived, with the Supreme Court continuing to uphold racial discrimination and segregation in its decisions, thus giving southern states free reign to impose literacy tests and all manner of voting restrictions on prospective voters, discriminating against black voters. But racism was not just recurring in the South. Although the Jim Crow Laws were a Southern phenomenon, the sentiment behind them was a national one. There was a resurgence of racism in the North as well and “ emerging national, indeed international, consensus (among whites at any rate) that Reconstruction had been a serious mistake.”