When could black men first vote?

Question

I was told by one of the smartest black people I've ever met that black men didn't have to right to vote a full share until the early nineteen sixties. Is that true?

Answer 1

Many if not most black people in the deep south could not vote until the early 60s. Very true. There were poll taxes which the poor could not afford. There were literacy tests that only the black people had to take (and they weren't valid tests anyway). And when the Freedom Riders (young people from other parts of the country) went down there to register black people to vote, we were harassed, chased out of town, shot at and in some cases killed. This was an intense and dangerous time in our history. The final nail was put in the coffin of discriminatory voting practices when President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In an indirect way, however, many black people are still being deprived of their equal voting rights. The purging of the rolls that took place in Ohio and Florida, just to name two states, primarily removed black people, many of whom were legal voters. In Ohio in 2004, voters in black precincts had to stand in the pouring rain for hours on end due to a shortage of voting machines while white voters got in and out in 10 minutes. All of these voting illegalities were created by certain people in the Republican Party to disenfrancise black people because they predominantly vote Democratic.

Answer 2

1870

Amendment 15 - Race No Bar to Vote. Ratified 2/3/1870. History

1. 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.

2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Answer 3

Google search: black vote amendment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified on Feb. 3rd, 1870, theoretically gave black men the vote. As others have observed, putting this into practice took at least another hundred years.

Answer 4

There were "Free Blacks" who could vote long before the Civil War.