Passed by Congress February 26, 1869. Ratified February 3, 1870.
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 the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits the use of race in determining which citizens can vote and how they do so. The last of three so-called Reconstruction Era amendments ratified in the period following the Civil War, the amendment sought to abolish one of the key vestiges of slavery and to advance the civil rights and liberties of former slaves. Section 2 of the amendment gives Congress the power to enforce it by enacting federal legislation that ensures racial equality in voting.
The ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 had little impact for almost a century because states imposed poll taxes, literacy tests, and other restrictions that kept African Americans from voting. But the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, along with a number of Supreme Court decisions interpreting these laws, have done much to guarantee voting rights for African Americans and other citizens of color.
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The Fourteenth Amendment did not explicitly grant the vote to African American men, although it decreased congressional representation for states that denied them the vote. Congress debated proposals for an amendment forbidding discrimination in voting based on race, and some Americans argued that women’s suffrage should also be included. But the amendment passed by Congress in 1869 and ratified in 1870 did not mention gender. As a result, it benefited only men until 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified. And, for almost one hundred years after its ratification, the Fifteenth Amendment offered very little protection to African American men, either.
Linda R. Monk, J.D., is a constitutional scholar, journalist, and nationally award-winning author. A graduate of Harvard Law School, she twice received the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award, its highest honor for law-related media. Her books include The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution, Ordinary Americans: U.S. History Through the Eyes of Everyday People, and The Bill of Rights: A User’s Guide. For more than 25 years, Dr. Monk has written commentary for newspapers nationwide, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, and Huffington Post. In addition, she has appeared on MSNBC, C-SPAN, and NPR.