Constitutional Amendment Dbq

The African American males were eligible to vote now, but ended up not enjoying their citizenship and rights to vote. All African Americans were granted “The First Vote,”(Document F). They were now citizens and were allowed to vote due to the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendment. This should have been a great moment in history for the blacks, but instead whites made them feel like being a citizen was bad and they hurt and tormented them. The Reconstruction Era negatively affected the South more so than the North politically.

These laws were hard to get around and go through because many African Americans did not have the money to afford the poll tax and many could not pass the literacy tests because they were not provided with adequate education. In addition, many African American’s grandparents were in enslavement, therefore unable to vote. These inabilities, segregation, and discrimination caused African Americans to be upset and start the Civil Rights Movement and made them want to fight for the rights and goals that they believed in. They would fight until they were satisfied with justice coming about and prevailing (Document 3). They would fight back with peaceful protests and marches.

Although African Americans were free, they were treated as less than a white U.S Citizen. Up until 1870, black people were unable to vote. Ulysses S. Grant despised these injustices and made it his presidential goal to fight for civil rights. On February 3, the 15th Amendment was passed giving African Americans the right to vote. This empowered a new collective of people to voice their opinions.

The 15th Amendment (Amendment XV), which gave African-American men the right to vote, was inserted into the U.S. Constitution on March 30, 1870. Passed by Congress the year before, the amendment says, “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.” Although the amendment was passed in the late 1870s, many racist practices were used to oppose African-Americans from voting, especially in the Southern States like Georgia and Alabama. After many years of racism, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to overthrow legal barricades at the state and local levels that deny African-Americans their right to vote. In the

For the first time, African-American men across the country were legally permitted to vote. It was a significant step in the journey toward racial equality. The amendment was ratified in 1870, as the U.S. was struggling to recover from the Civil War. The war had destroyed its unity, ruined its economy, and killed well over one million people.

But, when these officials were elected to Congress, they passed the “black codes” and thus the relations between the president and legislators became worst (Schriefer, Sivell and Arch R1). These so called “Black Codes” were “a series of laws to deprive blacks of their constitutional rights” that they were enacted mainly by Deep South legislatures. Black Codes differ from a state to another but they were stricter in the Deep South as they were sometimes irrationally austere. (Hazen 30) Furthermore, with the emergence of organizations such as the Red Shirts and the White League with the rise of the Conservative White Democrats’ power, efforts to prevent Black Americans from voting were escalating (Watts 247), even if the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S constitution that gave the Blacks the right to vote had been ratified in 1870.

Even though the government adopted the Voting Rights Act in 1965, African Americans’ suffrages were still restricted because of southern states’ obstructions. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was important for blacks to participate in political elections, but before this act was passed, there were several events led to its proposal. The government gave African Americans’ the right to vote by passing the 15th Amendment, but in the Southern States, blacks’ suffrages were limited by grandfather clauses, “poll taxes, literacy tests, and other bureaucratic restrictions” (ourdocuments.gov). As times went on, most African Americans couldn’t register their votes.

Observably, the Jim Crow laws passed by southern states effectively disfranchised African-Americans from the late nineteenth century until well into the 20th century. In the ongoing of Reconstruction, after the Civil War, African Americans in the south briefly enjoyed voting privileges because they felt nearly equal to whites. However, around 1890, legally sanctioned disfranchisement occurred abruptly. For example, during the years’ right after the Civil War, African Americans made up as much as forty-four percent of the registered electorate in Louisiana, but by 1920, they constituted only 1 percent of the electorate. In Mississippi, almost seventy percent of eligible African Americans were registered to vote in 1867 and after 1890, less than six percent were eligible to vote.

Southerners evoked fear into the community and terrorized them so they would not vote. African Americans were too

To accomplish social equality and justice has been a long controversial issue in U.S. history. Voting Rights Act of 1965 should be understood as a tremendous accomplishment today because it not only represent a symbol of the triumph of fighting social injustice, but also open the first gate for African American and minority to strive for more political power in order to create a “great society.”

One of reasons the confederacy failed was because the U.S. Congress, with Lincoln’s support, proposed the 13th amendment which would abolish slavery in America. Although the confederate peace delegation was unwilling to accept a future without slavery, the radical and moderate Republicans designed a way to takeover the reconstruction program. The Radical Republicans wanted full citizenship rights for African Americans and wanted to implement harsh reconstruction policies toward the south. The radical republican views made up the majority of the Congress and helped to pass the 14th amendment which guaranteed equality under the law for all citizens, and protected freedmen from presidential vetoes, southern state legislatures, and federal court decisions. In 1869, Congress passed the fifteenth amendment stating that no citizen can be denied the right to vote because of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

The Thirteenth Amendment took some time to pass. Johnson really didn’t want blacks to have rights. He did everything in his power to make sure African Americans didn’t have freedom. After slavery was abolished the black codes came up in the summer of 1865 in the South. These codes were basically promoting slavery once again but using a different name. Nothing would have happen to abolish the black codes if it weren’t for the moderates. In 1866 the moderates produced two bills. The first bill was Freedman’s Bureau Bill. This bill distributed food, supervised labor contracts, and sponsored school for freedman. Big surprise, Johnson vetoed the bill. Congress tried to override Johnson’s veto but failed. The second bill the moderates proposed was the Civil Rights Act of 1866. This bill basically got rid

Many people were brutally beaten and there were also some that lost their lives, because of it. Lyndon B Johnson begins his speech his by convincing his listener that he will flight for what is owed to the Negros. That is the equal right to vote regardless of your race. The speech “We Shall Overcome”, speech gets to the core of the problem within the Legislation itself. He wants to see that everyone will abide by the 15th Amendment that gives Negros the right and the privilege to vote without any recourse, without worrying

The whites thought that sooner or later if we let them vote that they’re going to take over. The Jim Crow Laws system stopped the blacks from voting. That caught the Civil Right leaders and that brought attention to Mississippi. That made it acceptable for that 7% of black people to vote. In Document B which was a “Freedom Summer Pamphlet.”

In the Jim Crow context, the presidential election of 1912 was steeply slanted against the interests of black Americans. A majority of African Americans are still settling in the South, where they are currently facing stringent restrictions so they could not vote at all. While