Could black people vote in the 50"s?

Question

or in the 60's

Answer 1

They could always vote in the northern states.

Answer 2

Yes, in the North. Very few in the South as they did everything possible to prevent it, although they technically had the right to vote. literacy tests and other means were used to prevent them from voting.  Many white people could not have passed these tests, but they were only given to blacks. Intimidation and worse were also used.

The Voting Rights Act of 1964 did a lot to change this, but there are still places were various methods are used to discourage blacks from voting (by the republicans).

Answer 3

Most people refer to the 'Civil Rights Act of 1964' which made it illegal to deny blacks the right to vote. The 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gave black  (males) the right to vote in 1865. The 13th Amendment in 1863

took them out of bondage.  Later in  1863, the 14th gave them citizenship, meaning they could call (the law [law enforcement agencies] ).  If the KKK came burning crosses on their lawn,,,they were 'entitled ' to call the (law).  Citizens were/are entitled to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit (only the pursuit) of Happiness.

Answer 4

for the uSA government of that time,  they were not people, they were slaves

Answer 5

There are two different "coulds" to answer here.

Constitutionally, yes, African-Americans could vote in the 1950s.  The 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, guaranteed all male citizens the right to vote, and the 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920, guaranteed all female citizens the right to vote.

Socially, and even psuedo-legally, this wasn't the case.  The federal government did a "wink-and-nod" with discriminatory voting practices, like the oft-cited white primaries, poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses.  Beyond these "legal" measures, social pressure kept many African-Americans away from the voting booth for fear of reprisals.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 both worked to force the federal government to uphold equal voting standards.  These two Acts did not themselves suddenly create a voting revolution - the social standards of the time were changing, with television transmitting pictures of attacks on civil rights marchers.  The Acts granted an official legality to the actions of the Civil Rights Movement, but they certainly didn't start it.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking "it was only in the South."  It's actually not the case that African-Americans unequivocally had the vote in the North.  Racism and segregation were present in both halves of the country - school segregation, often thought to be confined to the South, was actually very present in the North despite official laws that prohibited it.  The headquarters of the KKK are in Michigan.  Racism happens everywhere.