Disenfranchisement In The 19th Century

The disenfranchisement of Black Americans is as old as their presence in The United States. This disenfranchisement manifests itself in many different ways and is perpetuated on an institutional and individual levels. The oppression that blacks face have been consistently resisted by Black people and our allies. One of the more favorable ways of resistance towards institutional racism in the past and in the present has been to create legal reform. Laws such as the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendment, also referred to as Reconstruction Amendments, are some laws that alleviated the oppression black people faced. Even though those amendments were put into place the individual and institutional injustices that blacks faced were still prevalent. The

These efforts often took shape in the form of legal reform. During the mid-nineteenth century three key amendments, known as The Reconstruction Amendments were made to attempt to legally acknowledge the rights of blacks in America. The first was the 13th amendment that was ratified on December 18, 1865 and is associated with the abolishment of slavery. However the 13th amendment states that slavery is not allowed “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” (“Primary Documents in American History." 13th Amendment…). Second came the 14th amendment that was ratified on July 9, 1868 and granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States. The goal of this amendment was to increase the amount of people that had access to the protections of civil rights to all those classified under the law as American (“Primary Documents in American History." 14th Amendment…). Finally there was the 15th amendment which was ratified on February 3, 1870 and granted African-American men the right to vote. (“Primary Documents in American History." 15th Amendment…). These amendments attempted to alleviate some of the maltreatment black people faced in this country. Yet many of the rights that these