Question

How did the Fifteenth Amendment and the 1960s civil rights laws extend voting rights to more Americans?

Answer 1

The Fifteenth Amendment was the initial move in awarding complete voting rights to African Americans. But, Jim Crow laws generated more constraints on these rights. With the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the Fifteenth Amendment was implemented as voting constraints were lifted.

Fifteenth Amendment:

The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution forbids the central and state jurisdictions from rejecting a voter the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or former position of subjection".

Answer 2

The Fifteenth Amendment was created to prevent people from forbidding others to vote based on their race, color, or previous condition of servitude, which means that it was illegal to forbid African-Americans from voting. The civil right laws removed other racist things that were imposed to still prevent them such as an obligatory literacy test and other things that were created in the south to prevent African-American voters.