Black suffrage

Prior to the Civil War and the Reconstruction Amendments to the U.S. Constitution some free Black men in the United States were given the right to vote.

[1] Most black men in the United States were, however, not able to exercise the right to vote until after the American Civil War with the Reconstruction Amendments.

In 1870, the 15th Amendment was ratified to prohibit states from denying a male citizen the right to vote based on “race, color or previous condition of servitude."

[citation needed] Female suffrage, regardless of race, was only gradually introduced following the Civil War, beginning with Wyoming in 1869.

In fall 1920, many Black women showed up at the polls, but many existing hurdles for African Americans were particularly cumbersome in repressing .

MLK and Malcolm X
Engraving of the first opening of the Cape Parliament in 1854. The new constitution barred discrimination on the basis of race or colour and, in principle at least, the Parliament and other government institutions at the time were explicitly colour-blind.