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Until the 1960s, many states required citizens to pass a literacy test to qualify to vote.

Usually white voters were judged literate if they could write their names, but African American voters were often required to do much more.

Usually amounting to a dollar or two, citizens had to pay a poll tax before they could vote.

Twenty-fourth Amendment outlawed the poll tax in national elections.

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Fifteenth Amendment did not result in complete voting rights for African Americans.

Political leaders in Southern states set up a number of roadblocks to disenfranchise and discourage the participation of African American voters.

Grandfather clause: an exemption in a law for a certain group based on previous conditions.

Provided that only voters whose grandfathers had voted before 1867 were eligible to vote without paying a certain tax or passing a literacy test.

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The first effort to extend suffrage to African Americans nationwide came shortly after the Civil War, when the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified in 1870.

No state could deprive any citizen of the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

First time that the U.S. Constitution dictated rules to the states about who they must allow to vote.

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Voting is making a choice among alternatives in an election.

Before the American Revolution, the colonies placed many restrictions on who had the right to vote.

Women and most African Americans were not allowed to vote and neither were white males who did not own property or pay taxes.

In some colonies, only members of the dominant religious group could vote.