Racist state and local governments, primarily in the south- eastern US, created new barriers designed to prevent people of color from voting. Those barriers included poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses. It would be nearly 100 years later – with the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – that people of color would have a federally protected path to vote.
Voter Registration, Macon, Ga.
Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library.
On this day in 1870, the U.S. expanded the right to vote to all men, regardless of the color of their skin. It was a remarkable change in voting rights, made possible by the ratification of the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
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