The 14th Amendment got passed but African Americans still couldn't vote, couldn't join the militia, and some states didn't even allow African Americans to live in their state. The 15th Amendment then came along and it stated that African Americans (only men) could vote. Some states made it very hard to vote for a lot of people they created the poll tax and the literacy test. The poll tax was a tax you had to pay just to vote, and the literacy test is to see if you can read in right in the English language. Many African Americans did not know how to read nor write since they were not allowed to. The first African American man to vote was Thomas M. Peterson.