Fifteenth Amendment Ratified: Black Men Gain Voting Rights

The Fifteenth Amendment prohibited denying the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Black communities celebrated with parades in cities across the North and South. Frederick Douglass called it "the most important event that has occurred since the nation came into existence." The amendment's reach was immediately contested: Southern states deployed poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and terrorism to nullify it in practice.