Why was the fifteenth amendment necessary

The 15th Amendment to the U. Constitution granted African American men the right to vote by declaring that the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Through the use of poll taxes, literacy tests and other means, Southern states were able to effectively disenfranchise African Americans. It would take the passage of the Voting Rights Act of before the majority of African Americans in the South were registered to vote. Search this Guide Search. Supreme Court. After the passage of the Voting Rights Act, state and local enforcement of the law was weak and it often was ignored outright, mainly in the South and in areas where the proportion of Black citizens in the population was high and their vote threatened the political status quo.

Still, the Voting Rights Act of gave African American voters the legal means to challenge voting restrictions and vastly improved voter turnout. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!

Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. The 14th Amendment to the U. The 13th Amendment to the U. Constitution, ratified in in the aftermath of the Civil War, abolished slavery in the United States.

The 19th Amendment to the U. Even before the U. Constitution was created, its framers understood that it would have to be amended to confront future challenges and adapt and grow alongside the new nation. In creating the amendment process for what would become the permanent U. Constitution, the framers The Voting Rights Act , adopted in , offered greater protections for suffrage. Though the Fifteenth Amendment had significant limitations, it was an important step in the struggle for voting rights for African Americans and it laid the groundwork for future civil rights activism.

Explore This Park. Article The Fifteenth Amendment. This series was written by Dr. Electioneering in the South, circa Voter Registration, Macon, Ga. Freedmen Voting In New Orleans, circa Consider This: What does citizenship mean to you?

Tragically, failure is nothing new to the 15th Amendment. Even as the country prospered, enslaved people were denied the fruits of their own labor. This only began to change in the middle of the 19th century, as the abolitionist movement picked up steam and the United States split in two.

At the close of the Civil War, the nation wrangled with the future of nearly 4 million Black people who, until the adoption of the 13th Amendment, had been held captive in the South. On the heels of the 13th Amendment, which formally ended slavery, Congress passed the 14th Amendment to guarantee Black people citizenship and equality under the law. But suffrage was an entirely separate question.

As lawmakers mapped out plans to reunify the country, extending the right to vote was hardly a priority in the North — even among staunch abolitionists. In the South, however, Black people were voting. In some states — Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina — the African-American electorate outnumbered its white counterpart. Perhaps the most important stipulation was that the readmitted states had to draft new constitutions that guaranteed suffrage to citizens regardless of their race.

Meanwhile, many states in the North and West were voting down ballot measures to broaden the franchise in those regions. So in , the lame-duck Congress passed the 15th Amendment over impassioned opposition.