The Fifteenth Amendment outlaws voting discrimination by race, color, or previous condition of servitude. It delegates to Congress the power to enforce the law with further legislation. Though well intentioned, federal law lacked the power to keep southern states from enacting a myriad of devices to keep African Americans from voting. Some states instituted poll taxes, literary tests, whites-only primaries, and grandfather clauses that effectively kept African Americans from electoral participation. Non-government efforts to control voting also existed in groups such as the Ku Klux Klan that threatened any individual who fought for African Americans' voting rights. It was not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the federal government forbade discrimination in voting and registration. Despite this, poor African Americans in southern states still have some of the lowest voter turnout percentages in the nation.

Investigate the source using the zoom and navigational tools in the Flash player and then answer the questions below.

1			Why was the Fifteenth Amendment necessary after the Fourteenth Amendment had already been passed?
2			Why were states able to pass voting restriction laws even after the Fifteenth Amendment gave the federal government power to combat such action?
3			What groups does this amendment leave out?