Editing Lake Providence, Louisiana (section)

===20th century===
[[File:African American's tenant's home beside the Mississippi River levee. Near Lake Providence, Louisiana, June 1940.jpg|thumb|right|Residence of African-American [[tenant farmer]] beside the [[Mississippi River]] levee near Lake Providence (June 1940)]]
[[File:Map_from_U.S._Post_Office_Dept._archives_of_East_Carroll_Parish_and_vicinity_showing_post_office_locations_01.jpg|thumb|Street map of Lake Providence {{Circa|1945}}]]
After white Democrats regained power in the state legislature after the [[Reconstruction Era]], they worked to reimpose [[white supremacy]]. Many blacks worked as [[sharecropper]]s or [[tenant farmer]]s in the region. In 1898, Louisiana, like other southern states, enacted a new constitution, designed to maintain Democratic Party dominance and forestall any alliances such as the Populist-Republican alliance that had won seats in the 1890s. They included provisions that raised barriers to voter registration and elections, effectively [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disfranchising]] most blacks despite their constitutional [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|15th Amendment]] right to vote. Their exclusion from the political system made them second-class citizens.

The civil rights movement of the post-World War II period from the 1940s through the 1960s brought efforts of a new generation to make constitutional rights more equitable. Until 1962, no African Americans had been allowed to register to vote in Lake Providence or [[East Carroll Parish]] in forty years when [[U.S. District Judge]] [[Edwin F. Hunter|Edwin Ford Hunter, Jr.]], based in [[Lake Charles, Louisiana|Lake Charles]] in the far southwestern corner of the state, personally registered twenty-eight African Americans in Lake Providence under a provision of the [[Civil Rights Act of 1960]], which had been signed into law by [[U.S. President]] [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]. Hunter was challenged by Louisiana 6th Judicial District Judge Frank Voelker Sr., who was based in Lake Providence, in a dispute over the powers of the national government. The case attracted national attention, as the civil rights movement highlighted the constitutional infringement of the rights of African Americans in the South.<ref>"State Judge Restrains Federal Judge's Order", ''Sumter Daily Item'', [[Sumter, South Carolina|Sumter]], [[South Carolina]], July 21, 1962, p. 1</ref>

Following national Democratic support for the passage of civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s, most African Americans allied with that party. With a majority African-American electorate, Lake Providence voters in the 21st century continue to support [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]] candidates. Conservative whites tended to leave the Democratic Party after the 1960s, and have overwhelmingly joined the Republican Party. In the [[U.S. presidential election, 2008|2008]] and [[U.S. presidential election, 2012|2012]] presidential elections, East Carroll Parish voted handily for Democrat [[Barack H. Obama]] of [[Illinois]], rather than his Republican opponents, [[John McCain]] of [[Arizona]] and [[Mitt Romney]] of [[Massachusetts]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://staticresults.sos.la.gov/11042008/11042008_18.html|title=East Carroll Parish presidential election returns, November 4, 2008|publisher=staticresults.sos.la.govlaccessdate=November 19, 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://staticresults.sos.la.gov/11062012/11062012_18.html|title=East Carroll Parish presidential election returns, November 6, 2012|publisher=staticresults.sos.la.gov|access-date=November 19, 2012}}</ref>