The Fifteenth Amendment’s voting rights stood unenforced for nearly a century until the VRA

Evidence

President Lyndon Johnson signs into law the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The VRA protects rights granted in the Fifteenth Amendment, which states, “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 despite the amendment’s ratification in 1870, many Southern states had used intimidation, legal challenges, and outright violence for decades to stop Black Americans from voting. The VRA outlaws these practices. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1148

Categorization

• QUESTION: Follow-up worth chasing: which specific legal challenges and violent practices did Southern states deploy, and why did the Fifteenth Amendment prove so easily neutralized for a full century?