The Fifteenth Amendment granted the vote to all black men, giving freed slaves and free blacks greater political power than they had ever had in the United States. As a result
all of these

Blacks in former Confederate states elected a handful of black U.S. congressmen and a great many black local and state leaders.

The act excluded women from voting, so they continued to fight for suffrage through the NWSA and AWSA.

Black leaders instituted ambitious reform and modernization projects in the South.