Question

Why did the 15th Amendment effect so little change in African American voting rights?

A. After years of slavery, African Americans were distrustful of the Federal Government./

B. The Federal Government did nothing to solve the problems that African Americans faced when trying to exercise their right to vote.

C. The Amendment only applied to national elections, so States could prevent African Americans from voting in elections at the State and local levels.

D. While the States worked to enforce the amendment, the Federal Government put policies in place to undermine its effectiveness.

Answer 1

Answer: C.

Step-by-step explanation:

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.

Yet states still found ways to circumvent the Constitution and prevent blacks from voting. Poll taxes, literacy tests, fraud and intimidation all turned African Americans away from the polls. Until the Supreme Court struck it down in 1915, many states used the "grandfather clause " to keep descendants of slaves out of elections. The clause said you could not vote unless your grandfather had voted -- an impossibility for most people whose ancestors were slaves.

This unfair treatment was debated on the street, in the Congress and in the press. A full fifty years after the Fifteenth Amendment passed, black Americans still found it difficult to vote, especially in the South." What a Colored Man Should Do to Vote", lists many of the barriers African American voters faced.