Fifteenth Amendment

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amendment (1870) to the Constitution of the United States that guaranteed that the right to vote could not be denied based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The amendment complemented and followed in the wake of the passage of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments, which abolished slavery and guaranteed citizenship, respectively, to African Americans. The passage of the amendment and its subsequent ratification (Feb. 3, 1870) effectively enfranchised African American men, while denying that right to women of all colours. Women would not receive that right until the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.

The full text of the Fifteenth Amendment is:

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—

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

After the Civil War, during the period known as Reconstruction (1865–77), the amendment was successful in encouraging African Americans to vote. Many African Americans were even elected to public office during the 1880s in the states that formerly had comprised the Confederate States of America. By the 1890s, however, efforts by several states to enact such measures as poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses—in addition to widespread threats and violence—had completely reversed these trends. By the beginning of the 20th century, nearly all African Americans in the states of the former Confederacy were again disenfranchised. Although the Supreme Court and Congress attempted to strike down such actions as unconstitutional, it was not until Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson introduced the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that Congress was able to put an end to this violence and discrimination. The act abolished voter prerequisites and also allowed for federal supervision of voter registration. With the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the Fifteenth Amendment was finally enforceable, and voter turnout among African Americans improved markedly.

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