Black History Matters Week Three February 15 – 21, 2023 oswegocountytoday.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from oswegocountytoday.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
How Jim Crow-Era Laws Suppressed the African American Vote for Generations
In the wake of the passage of the 15th Amendment and Reconstruction, several southern states enacted laws that restricted Black Americans access to voting.
Author:
Black men voting in 1868./Credit: Corbis/Getty Images
In the wake of the passage of the 15th Amendment and Reconstruction, several southern states enacted laws that restricted Black Americans access to voting.
Following the ratification in 1870 of the 15
th Amendment, which barred states from depriving citizens the right to vote based on race, southern states began enacting measures such as poll taxes, literacy tests, all-white primaries, felony disenfranchisement laws, grandfather clauses, fraud and intimidation to keep African Americans from the polls.