"15th Amendment—African American Right to Vote"

Introduction
The Fifteenth Amendment replaced section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment in guaranteeing African Americans the right to vote in 1870. It extended voting rights to African Americans by outlawing denial of the right to vote on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. This meant that the right of African Americans to vote was no longer left to the states. For the first time the national government would set rules for voting. In this activity students will learn more about the Civil Rights Era by exploring some of the major events and leaders of the time period.

Lesson Description
Students will visit a Web site exhibit on the Civil Rights Era. They will read about the major events and leaders of the era. Students will also read an article from U.S. News and World Report, dated August 16, 1965, giving an account of the signing of the Voting Rights Act. Then they will answer questions pertaining to these topics. Following that students will create an illustrated time line of the Civil Rights Era.

Instructional Objectives

1. Students will be able to describe the impact of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
2. Students will be able to identify key events of the Civil Rights era.

Student Web Activity Answers

1. The 1963 March on Washington preceded the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
2. States could not use literacy tests, interpreting the Constitution, and other methods of excluding African Americans from voting.
3. 61 percent of African Americans were registered to vote in 1969.
4. The Fifteenth Amendment was signed in the same room of the Capitol where Abraham Lincoln (104 years earlier to the day) signed a bill freeing slaves who were being used by the Confederate states to help wage the Civil War.
5. Students' time lines should all share the same key events and leaders of the Civil Rights Era.

Go To Student Web Activity