Transcript Literacy Tests

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