Civics question 98 of 128

When did all men get the right to vote?

Source: official USCIS question list for the 2025 version of the civics test. This site is independent and not affiliated with USCIS.

Background

After the Civil War, during Reconstruction, with the Fifteenth Amendment, in 1870; any of those answers the question. The amendment bars denial of the vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, and Black men voted and held office across the South in large numbers in the years that followed. What came next is the part worth knowing. As Reconstruction ended, Southern states used poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and outright violence to strip that right away without ever mentioning race, and the exclusion held for most of a century. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was what finally gave the amendment force. Note also that the amendment covered men only; women waited until 1920.

This background section is written by US Citizenship Test Practice to explain the civics fact. It is not part of the USCIS question list, and the official answer above is the one to give at the interview.

Where this question sits

It is part of 1800s, inside the American History section of the test.

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