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Passed by Congress February 26, 1869, and ratified February 3, 1870, the 15th Amendment granted African American men the right to vote. -
After nearly disappearing in the states, a repurposed poll tax returned as part of a successful effort to undermine the Fifteenth Amendment and reestablish limits on the franchise. Beginning in Florida in 1889, all the former Confederate States, and a few others, instituted a suite of changes to voting laws as a part of this effort. -
By 1902, all eleven states of the former Confederacy (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee) had enacted a poll tax. -
1937 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Breedlove v. Suttles, which upheld a Georgia poll tax. -
In the early 1940's Congress starts an endeavor to eliminate the poll tax as a qualification for voting in federal elections.
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In 1951, the Supreme Court rejected the claim that Virginia's poll tax violated the Equal Protection Clause in the court case of Butler vs Thompson. -
His campaign gained momentum after the first televised presidential debates in American history, and he was elected president, narrowly defeating Republican opponent Richard Nixon, the incumbent vice president. -
During the civil rights era of the 1950s, particularly following the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, such policies increasingly were seen as barriers to voting rights, particularly for African Americans and the poor. Thus, the Twenty-fourth Amendment was proposed (by Sen. Spessard Lindsey Holland of Florida) -
Illinois becomes the first state to ratify the 24th amendment. 37 more states followed suit with South Dakota being the last on January 23, 1964. As you would assume, the southern states chose not to ratify. Mississippi even decided to specifically reject the amendment on December 20, 1962. The amendment was later ratified by Virginia (1977), North Carolina (1989), Alabama (2002), and Texas (2009). The amendment still has yet to be ratified by 8 states.
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Amendment Twenty-four to the Constitution was ratified on January 23, 1964. It abolished and forbids the federal and state governments from imposing taxes on voters during federal elections. -
In 1966, in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, the Supreme Court would find that poll taxes in all state and local elections were prohibited under the Equal Protection Clause.