The Democrat's Big Lie: Claiming They Have Always Been for Civil Rights for the Blacks

Part 2--In 1870, The Fifteenth Amendment to the constitution, the Voting Rights Amendment was Ratified, Allowing Blacks to Vote in All Parts of the US

After the War Between the States, legislation provided for voting rights for blacks, but the acts did not pertain to the North and border states.

At the time of Ulysses S. Grant's election to the presidency in 1868, Americans were struggling to reconstruct a nation torn apart by war. Voting rights for freed blacks proved a big problem. Reconstruction Acts passed after the war called for black suffrage in the Southern states, but many felt the approach unfair. The Acts did not apply to the North. And in 1868, 11 of the 21 Northern states did not allow blacks to vote in elections. Most of the border states, where one-sixth of the nation's black population resided, also refused to allow blacks to vote. Pbs-American Experience.

Who originated the plan to resolve this issue? It was the Republicans in congress. After a lot of wrangling, the Fifteenth Amendment was passed by congress on February 26, 1869. The amendment was ratified by 17 Republican states, and rejected by 4 Democrat states in the South. However, congress had one trick up their sleeve. The Southern States had not yet been re-admitted to the union, and in order to be admitted, they had to ratify the amendment, which they eventually did by 1870.

However, as we see in my last post of April 6, The Southern Democrats formed the KKK to defeat the intent of the amendment, and did everything they could, legal or illegal, to deprive the newest citizens of the country to exercise their right to vote.

The Tuskegee Institute has recorded 3,446 lynchings of blacks and 1,297 lynchings of whites between 1882 and 1968.[1] Southern states created new constitutions between 1890 and 1908, with provisions that effectively disenfranchised most blacks, as well as many poor whites. People who were not permitted to vote were also not permitted to serve on juries, further excluding them from the political process.

African Americans mounted resistance to lynchings in numerous ways. Intellectuals and journalists encouraged public education, actively protesting and lobbying against lynch mob violence and government complicity in that violence. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), as well as numerous other organizations, organized support from white and black Americans alike. African-American women's clubs, such as the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, raised funds to support the work of public campaigns, including anti-lynching plays. Their petition drives, letter campaigns, meetings and demonstrations helped to highlight the issues and combat lynching.[2] In the Great Migration, extending in two waves from 1910 to 1970, 6.5 million African Americans left the South, primarily for northern and mid-western cities. Wikipedia.