African Americans were not allowed to vote at all before 1870. That year, the effort to expand voting rights to these individuals began with the 15th Amendment. The 15th Amendment declares that the right to vote cannot be denied to any citizen of the United States because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The amendment was intended to ensure that African American men could vote. Yet African Americans still did not have the right to vote until almost 90 years after the amendment was ratified.
Even after the 15th Amendment, women of any race could not vote. This came to an end with the 19th Amendment, which prohibited the denial of the right to vote because of sex. This amendment was ratified in 1920 and by then, more than half of the States allowed women to vote. Wyoming was the first State to give suffrage to women. It did so in 1869.
The latest expansion to suffrage came with the adoption of the 26th Amendment in 1971. It provides that no State can set the minimum age for voting at more than 18 years of age. So, those 18 years of age or older now have the right to vote. Before the added amendment to our Constitution, the accepted voting age among the States was 21. Only four states had a lower voting age before the 26th Amendment.
In conclusion, Americans had to jump through a lot of hurdles to obtain the voting rights we have today. There were a lot of events that happened throughout our history that expanded suffrage through the years. Some of these very important events included the addition of three amendments to our constitution: the 15th, 19th, and 26th Amendments.
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