Voter Discrimination

15 Amendment

• Post Civil War amendment- 1870• “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”

• Do why then were African-Americans still be “discriminating” against at the polls as late as the 1960s?– And how were they being discriminated against?

Voting Rights Act of 1965

• Outlawed literacy tests

• Federal gov’t felt that Southern states could not be trusted– Sent federal registrars to the South to register

voters

• African American voter participation

• Voting Rights Act = pet project of President Lyndon Johnson