Challenges to the Fifteenth Amendment

Despite the 15th Amendment’s clear language prohibiting discrimination in the vote “on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude,” 95 years would pass before the Voting Rights Act of 1965 truly gave African Americans the right to vote in a meaningful way. Opposition in the former Confederate states developed quickly and took many forms—violent voter intimidation initially and later through grandfather clauses and poll taxes.

One of the restrictions and direct challenge that the former confederate states imposed to the Fifteenth amendment were the poll taxes that they had their voters pay. If you did not have the money to pay the tax, you basically did not get to vote. Another restriction that the states enforced was grandfather clauses. The clauses prohibited people from voting if their grandfather could not vote. This was indirectly directed to the African-American population, as the majority of them had slavery in their ancestry and had no chance of bypassing this law. It was not until 1915 that the Supreme Court voided these clauses as they were a violation of the Fifteenth.