ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by poll taxes,

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the widely-despised levy on Polish sausages.

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The rights granted by the change represented in the image

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were slowly reversed through... what?

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And here are your potential answers.

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Well, even before the celebration for the Fifteenth Amendment was over,

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African Americans started to see the gradual erosion of

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their newly acquired rights.

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Were the rights granted by the Fifteenth Amendment

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slowly reversed through A -

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federal legislation?

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Any federal laws or subsequent amendments

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hindering African American voting rights

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would have been pretty tough to get through Congress,

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especially with all those Northerners keeping an eye on things.

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So that eliminates A and B.

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Could these rights have been gradually taken away through C -

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foreign policy changes?

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Well, remember the right to vote is a domestic issue,

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not a foreign one, so that takes C out of the running, as well.

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Which means the rights granted by the Fifteenth Amendment

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were slowly reversed through D - state and local laws.

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With no one to oppose them, Southern

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states began passing local laws that made it nearly impossible

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for African Americans to exercise their right to vote.

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So the answer is D.

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Following another century of disenfranchisement,

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the issue was finally addressed with the 1965

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Voting Rights Act, which helped right the

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oh-so-wrongs of racial discrimination at the ballot box.

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