Question

Jim Crow laws were forced upon minorities at the end of Reconstruction by what means?

Answer 1

Making it almost impossible for them to vote.

Answer 2

The correct answer is 2.

In the Reconstruction Era, the 14th and 15th amendments to the US Constitution had been introduced in order to guarantee equal rights for all US citizens, preventing any form of discrimination in terms of race or previous conditions of servitude.

The states could not explicitly prevent any citizen from participating in the elections. Still, many Southern states, circumvented the newly established constitutional provisions by implementing the so-called Jim Crow laws.  These regulations established mandatory requirements such as literacy tests, payment of poll taxes, minimum income thresholds, etc., that citizens needed to fulfill to be able to register themselves to vote. These measures excluded mostly black citizens as, due to the historical conditions that this community had suffered, many were poorer and/or less educated (even illiterate), making it impossible for them to register and vote.