3 February 1870
Constitutional amendment / redressSupplement
Fifteenth Amendment protects voting against racial exclusion
United States; Black male voters in the contemporary electoral system
The amendment prohibited the United States and states from denying or abridging citizens’ voting rights because of race, color or previous condition of servitude. Congress received enforcement power. In Guinn v. United States (1915), the Supreme Court invalidated Oklahoma’s discriminatory grandfather clause.
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Context / qualification
It did not establish universal adult suffrage. In Minor v. Happersett (1875), the Supreme Court held that citizenship did not itself give women a constitutional right to vote.