How did African Americans survive poll tax

many southern states passed poll taxes in an effort to keep African Americans from voting. As a result, many African Americans (and other impoverished citizens) who could not afford to pay the poll tax were disfranchised and deprived of their rights as citizens. In 1870 the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted, stipulating that an individual's right to vote could not be denied by any state on the basis of race or color. Southern state legislators, however, soon looked for other ways to keep the vote from African Americans, which inevitably, and perhaps by design, blocked some white Americans. In response, many state legislatures drew up grandfather clauses to ensure that non–African American constituents were included in the voting process.