Black men had been granted the right to vote in 1870 in the 15th Amendment, which said people should be allowed to vote regardless of their race or previous condition of slavery.
But soon after Reconstruction, which ended in 1877, Southern states started passing laws that imposed conditions on the right to vote, including so-called literacy tests and poll taxes, according to attorney Mark Johnson, a partner at Dentons law firm in Kansas City.
Johnson, who teaches election law at the University of Kansas School of Law, sat down with The Star at his office at 45th and Main streets to discuss the legacy of the Voting Rights Act almost 50 years later — a law that still has resonance for new U.S. citizens — and how some of its gains have eroded in the past five years.