Section 1. 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. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation
The Fifteenth was the final "reconstruction amendment" and promised all citizens the right to vote. The ability for blacks to hold office was also included in many versions of the amendment, but even though it didn't make it to the final version many southern legislatures soon started seeing a lot of black state senators and representatives.
However by the 1890's, southern democrats had started instituting poll taxes and literacy tests designed to disenfranchise black voters. This issue was not addressed until much later in our history, and it extended the reign of atrocities against African Americans for generations.
It is interesting how important the right to vote is to people who have had that right violated by their governments. In Iraq and Afghanistan, voters brave suicide bombers and attacks in order to cast a vote for a better tomorrow for their people.
Meanwhile, we in the US are so apathetic about politics, that even when we do vote sometimes we just do so without even making the effort to learn about the issues or the candidates. A zogby poll of Obama voters in 2008 showed that over 50% of them didn't know which party was in control of congress at the time (it was the democrats), but they still turned out to vote out the republicans that were obviously to blame for all the problems of the last two years.
The Fifteenth was the final "reconstruction amendment" and promised all citizens the right to vote. The ability for blacks to hold office was also included in many versions of the amendment, but even though it didn't make it to the final version many southern legislatures soon started seeing a lot of black state senators and representatives.
However by the 1890's, southern democrats had started instituting poll taxes and literacy tests designed to disenfranchise black voters. This issue was not addressed until much later in our history, and it extended the reign of atrocities against African Americans for generations.
Meanwhile, we in the US are so apathetic about politics, that even when we do vote sometimes we just do so without even making the effort to learn about the issues or the candidates. A zogby poll of Obama voters in 2008 showed that over 50% of them didn't know which party was in control of congress at the time (it was the democrats), but they still turned out to vote out the republicans that were obviously to blame for all the problems of the last two years.
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