Question

Although the 15th Amendment was added to insure the voting rights of African American citizens this right was restricted by state

Answer 1

Although the 15th Amendment was added to insure the voting rights of African American citizens this right was restricted by state laws, known as Jim Crow Laws.

The 15th Amendment to the US Constitution was enacted in 1870, during the Reconstruction era, and it states that no federal or state goverment can prevent any US citizens from voting, without discrimination in terms of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude".

Some states, specially Southern ones, tried to circumvent these provisions by the enactment of the so-called Jim Crow Laws. States could not issue laws that explicitly prevented blacks from voting, but instead, they established certain legal requirements in order to access voting, such as a minimum income level or a minimum grade on a literacy test. The results of such regulations was that mostly black citizens were excluded from voting. These laws were discriminatory, and were eventually declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court. But when one of these laws was abolished by the federal judiciary system, the next law was already ready.

Answer 2

The 15th Amendment to the Constitution granted African American men the right to vote by declaring that 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 ratified on February 3, 1870, the promise of the 15th Amendment would not be fully realized for almost a century.