ABSTRACT
When the Voting Rights Act became law in 1965, the whites knew they could no longer deny blacks the right to vote. Therefore, they shifted their strategy to reducing the influence of the black vote. They did so most effectively by establishing at-large elections. When some Southern jurisdictions turned to at-large elections after 1965, however, it was to dilute the political power of blacks. By establishing at-large elections and by providing that each commissioner would administer a separate department with city wide functions, the officials of 1911 had designed a system that was less susceptible to ward parochialism. Pittman also said that Mobilians of 1911 should have foreseen that the natural consequence of at-large elections would be to dilute black power if the formal disfranchisement of the poll tax and literacy text ceased to exist.
