In 1869 Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This amendment gave the citizens of the United States the right to vote regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. However, this did not keep the states from charging a poll tax. A toll tax was a tax paid in order to be allowed to vote. This tax was unfair to the new voter that was unable to pay the tax. This injustice, as seen from the eyes of the poor, was made right in 1964. The United States ratified the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting any poll tax in elections for federal officials. The poll tax was used after the Fifteenth Amendment was passed to disenfranchise freed blacks, the “northern and western states used the …show more content…
poll tax to keep immigrants, unworthy and poor from the polls” (Henretta 453). This was another way to get around the Constitution and deny mostly African-Americans of their civil rights.The poll tax was a set amount that varied from state to state. Everyone paid the same amount regardless of income. This made it impossible for the poor to afford to vote, mainly the African-Americans, but poor white people were also affected. They would be forced to choose to eat or to vote. If the poor were not able to cast their ballot for the candidate that had their best interest in mind, the rich were able to keep their candidate in office and support their policies. “Beginning in the 1890’s, southern states also used literacy tests, and elaborate registration systems, in addition to poll taxes” (“White Only” 1).
This legislation was know as Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws were created to keep the blacks and whites segregated with the idea that the they were “separate but equal” (Henretta 612). Things did not end up being exactly equal. “Segregated facilities such as schools and hospitals were clearly not equal” (Henretta 612). In order for whites to get around the Jim Crow laws, they created a Grandfather Clause. “This claus was a statute enacted by many American southern states in the wake of Reconstruction (1865-1877) that allowed potential white voters to circumvent literacy tests, poll taxes, and other tactics designed to disfranchise southern blacks” (Brenc 1). In 1915, the Grandfather Clause was declared Unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court, but the states were clever and found other ways to suppress the African-Americans from voting. (Brenc …show more content…
1). The end of the poll tax begin with the Civil Rights Movement. According to Henretta, “the civil rights movement faced enormous resistance and required dauntless courage and sacrifice from thousands upon thousands of activists for more than three decades (820).
With leadership from the NAACP the black community was able to win small victories along the way. One victory was when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus which started a boycott that lasted 381 days (Henretta 830). The Supreme Court ruled segregation was unconstitutional in 1956 (Henretta 830). Little by little, the African-American fought their way into a middle-class society that could not be ignored. “In the 1960’s African American’s had access to education, media, and institutions, which made them less dependent on white patronage, and therefore less vulnerable to white retaliation” (Henretta
820). After decades of relentless suffering and never giving up, the poll tax was eliminated with the 24th Amendment. The Voting Rights Act was another law that passed in 1965 to eliminate literacy tests and other voting hindrances to prevent people from voting. “These two laws enabled millions of blacks to vote for the first time since the Reconstruction era” (Henretta 837). This lead to African-American officials to be elected to office and other political careers (Henretta 837). Voting controversy is still a major concern today. States across the country have started requesting voters to show a photo id to vote. “A total of 34 states have passed a law requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls (Underhill 1). This law is currently being challenged and under court review (Underhill 1). The reason for the photo id law is to prevent fraud, like people voting more than one or using a false name. This has been a concern especially on boarder states and states with close voting margins. Others are protesting the new changes because they believe it goes against the 24th Amendment that make poll taxes and all other fees unconstitution. It cost money to get a photo ID and it could discourage minorities or the poor from voting.
Additionally, the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed blacks the right to vote, but the South found ways to get around this amendment.
Finally the 15th Amendment was made in 1870 to assure that every person in the US had the right to vote and no one could take that right away as a result of race, color or because citizens used to be slaves.
The right to vote in the United States of America had always been a very important part of its society. The 1800s had brought about a different way of voting in the United States for white American men. The qualifications were
In the book, Colaiaco presents the successes that Dr. King achieves throughout his work for Civil Rights. The beginning of Dr. King’s nonviolent civil rights movements started in Montgomery, Alabama when Rosa Parks refused to move for a white person, violating city’s transportation rules. After Parks was convicted Dr. King, who was 26 at the time, was elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). “For 381 days, thousands of blacks walked to work, some as many as 12 miles a day, rather than continue to submit to segregated public transportation” (18). This boycott ended up costing the bus company more than $250,000 in revenue. The bus boycott in Montgomery made King a symbol of racial justice overnight. This boycott helped organize others in Birmingham, Mobile, and Tallahassee. During the 1940s and 1950s the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) won a series of cases that helped put it ahead in the civil rights movement. One of these advancements was achieved in 1944, when the United States Supreme Court banned all-white primaries. Other achievements made were the banning of interstate bus seating segregating, the outlawing of racially restraining covenants in housing, and publicly supporting the advancement of black’s education Even though these advancements meant quite a lot to the African Americans of this time, the NAACP’s greatest accomplishment came in 1954 with the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Brown vs. Board of Education case, which overturned the Plessy vs.
Following the victory of the North over the South in the civil war, Black Americans were given independence. This led to court rulings such as the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendment, which granted all citizens equality before the law and stated that, the ‘right to vote should not be denied ... on account of race’. However, in practice these Amendments were not upheld, there were no measures in place to implement these rulings and no prevention of the ill treatment of Black Americans. Due to these new rulings, De Facto segregation increased especially with the establishment of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Also, in the South although the 15th Amendment gave everyone the right to vote, Jim Crow laws were put in place to deliberately prevent Black Americans from voting. Black Americans had differing views on how to deal with their situation, while some felt it was best to accept the status quo, others wanted to fight for equal rights but disagreed on whether they should integrate with whites or remain separate.
The 15th amendment was quick to follow the Civil War, making it illegal to deny the right to vote to anyone on account of their race. Blacks did not actually gain the right to vote in all states until The Voting Rights Act in the 1960s. The government gave blacks the right to vote because they saw it could produce an immediate political gain. Nothing could be gained from allowing women to vote, so the government refrained from amending the constitution for women.
The fifteenth amendment was proposed to congress on February 26, 1869 and was ratified a year later. After the Civil war, the confederate states were forced to ratify the reconstruction amendments in order to be reinstated into the union.3 Charles Sumner, an advocate for equal rights, refused to vote as he believed that the amendment did not take necessary steps to prevent the development of various state laws that could disenfranchise black voters.4 Sumner was correct, by the 1890s many states had adopted legislature designed to keep blacks from voting. The Poll Taxes and Literacy Tests may be the most emblematic legislation of the period. These laws were passed in order to ke...
In 1863 to 1877 Reconstruction brought an end to slavery, it paved the way for the former slaves to become citizens. The African Americans wanted complete freedom. However, that right became a setback and were seen as second class citizens. Before the end of the Reconstruction, a legislation was passed called the Jim Crow law. The law enforced the segregation of people of African descent. The legislation was a system to ensure the exclusion of racial groups in the Southern States. For example, separate transportation law, school division, different waiting rooms both at the bus terminals and hospitals, separate accommodations, marriage law and voting rights. The Jim Crow law was supposed to help in racial segregation in the South. Instead,
The 15th Amendment states that “The right of the 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”. This gave African Americans the right to vote. The amendment seemed to signify the fulfillment of all promises to African Americans. The 15th Amendment is also categorized as one of the three constitutional amendments. In the beginning thirty-seven states ratified the 15th Amendment. The first of these states to ratify the 15th Amendment was Nevada. To disenfranchise African Americans, devices were written into the constitutions of former confederate states. In 1869, when the New Year began, the republicans were anxious to introduce a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the black man’s right to vote. Congress considered the amendment that was proposed for two months. When congress approved a compromise, the amendment did not specifically mention the black man. The struggle for and against ratification hung on what blacks and other political interests would do. The Republican-dominated Congress passed the First Reconstruction Act. This act divided the South into five military districts and outlining how ...
Events like 1954 Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed segregated education, and 1956’s, Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat, which stemmed the Montgomery Bus Boycott, was the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement.
The laws undermined the thirteenth, fourteenth,and fifteenth amendments. The thirteenth amendment completely abolished slavery.The fourteenth amendment stated that all people born or naturalized in America were American citizens, even African Americans and former slaves. The fifteenth amendment stated that people could not be denied the right to vote no matter their race, color, or former condition of servitude. States, especially those in the south, started passing laws that pushed African Americans down into second class. Southern states soon made the Grandfather Clause, all voters must pay a poll tax, take a literacy and property test, and an understanding clause. They were able to do this by saying it was to disqualify the the poor and unintelligence people from voting.
Success was a big part of the Civil Rights Movement. Starting with the year 1954, there were some major victories in favor of African Americans. In 1954, the landmark trial Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka Kansas ruled that segregation in public education was unfair. This unanimous Supreme Court decision overturned the prior Plessy vs. Ferguson case during which the “separate but equal” doctrine was created and abused. One year later, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. launched a bus boycott in Montgomery Alabama after Ms. Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat in the “colored section”. This boycott, which lasted more than a year, led to the desegregation of buses in 1956. Group efforts greatly contributed to the success of the movement. This is not only shown by the successful nature of the bus boycott, but it is shown through the success of Martin Luther King’s SCLC or Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The conference was notable for peacefully protesting, nonviolence, and civil disobedience. Thanks to the SCLC, sit-ins and boycotts became popular during this time, adding to the movement’s accomplishments. The effective nature of the sit-in was shown during 1960 when a group of four black college students sat down at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in hopes of being served. While they were not served the first time they commenced their sit-in, they were not forced to leave the establishment; their lack of response to the heckling...
After the American Civil War that liberated blacks from slavery, the government has taken steps to ensure the rights of the black population (13, 14, 15 amendments to the Constitution). In response, the Democrats of the southern states have adopted local laws severely limited the rights of black minority. These laws became known as the "Jim Crow laws". By 1915, in every southern state laws were passed which established segregation in schools, hotels, and others. There were limitations associated with participation in the vote: poll tax and literacy test, which related only to blacks. Major changes have occurred during the presidency of Lyndon John. At this particular time, the Civil Rights Movement has achieved significant results.
...ivil rights in America, galvanized by the landmark Brown vs. Board of Educa2tion of Topeka decision of 1954.” The Montgomery bus boycott happened on “December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks... who refused to give up her sear to a white passenger on a bus” she was arrested. Later, the Supreme Court ruled “segregated seating on public buses unconstitutional in November 1956.”
Blacks walked miles to work, organized carpools, and despite efforts from the police to discourage this new spark of independence, the boycotts continued for more than a year until in November 1956 the Supreme Court ruled that the Montgomery bus company must desegregate it's busses. Were it not for the leadership of Rosa Parks and Jo Ann Robinson, and the support the black community through church congregations, these events may have not happened for many years to come.