Fifteenth Amendment

This print features a festive parade held in Baltimore in May 1870 to celebrate the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1870), which granted the right to vote to male citizens, regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Following the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery (1865), and the Fourteenth to guarantee citizenship to all persons born in the United States (1868), the Fifteenth held special significance: For the first time in U.S. history, it empowered a minority class.

Vignettes surrounding the central image depict some of the hopes, dreams, and expectations of African Americans. At lower left center, a couple enacts their new right to a legal marriage, which had been denied them prior to emancipation. At the lower right center, a Black elected official is shown attending a session of Congress, with a caption reading, “Our Representative Sits in the National Legislature.”