When African Americans were given the right to vote with the passing of the 15th amendment, the states still found a way to prohibit them from voting. Many states required people to not only pass a literacy test, but also pay a poll tax. Therefore, anyone who couldn’t pay or couldn’t read were excluded from casting their vote at the polls. After the efforts of people like Martin Luther King Jr., these obstacles to voter rights were finally abolished in 1965 with the passing of the Voting Rights Act.