15th Amendment Ratified, Prohibiting Voting Discrimination by Race

The 15th Amendment, ratified February 3, 1870, prohibited denying the right to vote 'on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.' Black men across the South immediately exercised voting rights in large numbers, electing Black and Republican candidates to local, state, and federal offices. However, the Amendment did not prohibit poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, or other facially race-neutral disenfranchisement mechanisms — loopholes that Southern states would systematically exploit from the 1870s through the 1960s to eliminate Black political participation.