Fifteenth Amendment (1870)
The Fifteenth Amendment was not a factor in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, but certainly was during the Reconstruction Era. Unfortunately, and as then candidate Rutherford B. Hayes wrote, "Local self-government has nullified the Fifteenth Amendment in several States, and is in a fair way to nullify the Fourteenth and Thirteenth" (1).
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by an State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enfoce this article by appropriate legislation (2).
The dress of these men voting indicate many different professions and jobs...opportunites existed early during the Reconstruction Era for the freedman; but, they were quickly vanishing.
Image is from Harpers Weekly 10/31/1874. Soon legal methods, such as poll taxes, and violence, such as lynching, were used to keep blacks away from the polls.
Footnotes:
1 James M. McPherson, ed., Ordeal of Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction, 3rd edition (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2001), 640.
2. Brook Thomas, ed., Plessy v. Ferguson: A Brief History with Documents (Bedford/ St. Martins, 1997), 11.