USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting. This “act to enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution” was signed into law 95 years after the amendment was ratified.

Detailed explanation-2: -The amendment reads, “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.” The 15th Amendment guaranteed African American men the right to vote.

Detailed explanation-3: -Prior to passage of the federal Voting Rights Act in 1965, Southern states maintained elaborate voter registration procedures deliberately designed to deny the vote to nonwhites. This process was often referred to as a “literacy test, ” a term that had two different meanings-one specific and one general.

Detailed explanation-4: -The literacy test was a device to restrict the total number of immigrants while not offending the large element of ethnic voters. The “old” immigration (British, Dutch, Irish, German, Scandinavian) had fallen off and was replaced by a “new” immigration from Italy, Russia and other points in Southern and eastern Europe.