Question

In the South during the late 1800s, grandfather clauses prevented

Answer 1

most African Americans from voting because their grandfathers were not able to vote.

Answer 2

The correct option is: "Most African Americans from voting because their grandfathers were not able to vote."

At the end of the Reconstruction, the democratic legislators of the southern states found new means to restrict the voting rights of the blacks, through intimidation, violence and Jim Crow laws. In the period from 1890 to 1908, 10 states modified their state constitutions with new provisions that included literacy tests, capitation taxes or Grandfather Clauses that allowed people to vote because their grandparents already had that right that they otherwise would not have been able to vote , some illiterate whites were able to vote thanks to these provisions. Although its purpose was to curtail the electoral rights of people of color, as they applied to all voters, the Supreme Court ruled that these provisions were constitutional in a lawsuit of 1875 (United States vs. Cruikshank). Over the years the Supreme Court was declaring these provisions unconstitutional, in litigation that was presented by people of color throughout the twentieth century. Given this, the southern states protected themselves from these litigation by changing their laws to remain legal, causing that in the 1960s most of the southern states the majority of the African-American population did not have the right to vote.