Darryl Paulson, Author at Florida Politics - Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government.

Darryl PaulsonSeptember 18, 2013

Fourth in a series. There is universal agreement among the scholars of Southern politics that the literacy test was the primary obstacle confronting blacks who desired to vote. Supposedly, all voters, black and white, had to pass a literacy test before earning the right to vote. Although equally applied to blacks and whites in theory, […]

Darryl PaulsonSeptember 17, 2013

Third of six parts. Florida was the first state in the nation to adopt a poll tax. In 1889 the Legislature adopted a $2 annual poll tax as a requirement for voting. On the surface, there was nothing discriminatory about the tax. Both whites and blacks had to pay it. In reality, the legislators knew […]

Darryl PaulsonSeptember 16, 2013

Second of six parts. In the first part of this series, I wrote that the 15th Amendment said that Southern states could not deny the right to vote based on race, but that they used a variety of tactics to keep blacks from voting anyway. One of the major barriers to black voting in Florida […]

Darryl PaulsonSeptember 15, 2013

First of a six-part series about black voting in Florida. Blacks comprised almost half of Florida’s population at the end of the Civil War. Like other Southern states, most blacks in Florida were slaves and none had the right to vote. As a condition for rejoining the Union, Florida and the rest of the Confederate […]

Darryl PaulsonSeptember 11, 2013

What if I told you that Republicans are likely to win the white vote in the 2016 presidential election by 24 percent? If you are a Democrat, you might be a bit nervous. Don’t be. Republicans can win the white vote by that margin and still lose the election if nonwhite voters cast their ballots […]

Darryl PaulsonSeptember 10, 2013

For 35 years I told students in my government courses that politics comes from the Ancient Greek word “poly” meaning “many” and “tics” meaning “ugly, bloodsucking parasites.” During the first 15 years, students laughed. For the last 20 years, students busily wrote the definition in their notes. They had no reason to believe it was […]

Darryl PaulsonSeptember 9, 2013

Near the end of his term as governor, when his name was being floated as a possible vice president on the McCain ticket, Charlie Crist visited Israel to help enhance his foreign policy credentials. One of the Israeli newspapers ran the headline “Christ is Coming.” It wasn’t Christ, but Crist, who was coming, and now […]

Darryl PaulsonSeptember 5, 2013

For 35 years I taught courses about Florida and Southern Politics. A great portion of those courses dealt with the issues of race and segregation. The struggle to end segregation and provide civil rights for all Americans was long and bitter. The Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and the passage of the […]

Darryl Paulson
Crowds gather to see Atlantis at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. (Gabrielle Russon)

Darryl Paulson: Black Voter Discrimination: The Literacy Test and Grandfather Clause

Darryl Paulson: Black voter discrimination in Florida: The poll tax

Darryl Paulson: Black voter discrimination in Florida: The white primary

Darryl Paulson: Black Voter Discrimination in Florida: Civil War to Reconstruction

Darryl Paulson: GOP can’t depend on white vote to win presidential elections

Darryl Paulson: The missing links in politics: Compromise and humility

Darryl Paulson: The case against Charlie Crist for governor

Darryl Paulson: We are replacing racial segregation with political segregation