Black voting fell off sharply in most areas because of threats by white employers and violence from the Ku Klux Klan, a ruthless secret organization bent on preserving white supremacy at all costs. With federal troops no longer present to protect the rights of black citizens, white supremacy quickly returned to the old Confederate states. But all this changed when Reconstruction ended in 1877 and federal troops withdrew from the old Confederacy. For the first time, black men and women enjoyed freedom of speech and movement, the right of a fair trial, education for their children, and all the other privileges and protections of American citizenship. But these governments brought about significant improvements in the lives of the former slaves. Many citizens complained about overtaxation and outright corruption. The Republican-controlled state governments in the South were hardly perfect. This was the pattern in most of the Southern states during Reconstruction. But even though the new black citizens voted freely and in large numbers, whites were still elected to a large majority of state and local offices. senators to Washington and elected a number of black state officials, including a lieutenant governor. During the next decade, Mississippi sent two black U.S. When Mississippi rejoined the Union in 1870, former slaves made up more than half of that state’s population. For the most part, these new black voters cast their ballots solidly for the Republican Party, the party of the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln. More than a half-million black men became voters in the South during the 1870s (women did not secure the right to vote in the United States until 1920). It stated that, “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.” In 1870, the 15th Amendment was ratified. citizens, which included the former slaves. This Reconstruction amendment prohibited states from denying “the equal protection of the laws” to U.S.

Army occupation, the former Confederate states wrote new constitutions and were readmitted to the Union, but only after ratifying the 14th Amendment. In 1867, the Radical Republicans in Congress imposed federal military rule over most of the South. Voting During ReconstructionĪfter the Civil War, Congress acted to prevent Southerners from re-establishing white supremacy. Despite the 14th and 15th Amendments guaranteeing the civil rights of black Americans, their right to vote was systematically taken away by white supremacist state governments. This, in fact, is what happened to African-American citizens living in the South following Civil War Reconstruction. Without this right, people can be easily ignored and even abused by their government. The most basic right of a citizen in a democracy is the right to vote.

Grave of civil rights activist Medgar Evers in Arlington National Cemetery. Now, after the Germans and Japanese hadn’t killed us, it looked as though the white Mississippians would.” “We fought during the war for America, Mississippi included. “All we wanted to be was ordinary citizens,” Evers later related.

But when he and some other black ex-servicemen attempted to vote, a white mob stopped them. After returning home from World War II, veteran Medgar Evers decided to vote in a Mississippi election.

Grandfather clause history