Which answer choice from the article expresses two ideas that would be MOST important to include in a summary of the article?


A
The amendment reads: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.” By late 1870, all the former Confederate states had been readmitted to the Union, and most were controlled by the Republican Party, thanks to the support of black voters.

B
After decades of discrimination, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that denied blacks their right to vote under the 15th Amendment. (In 1964, the 24th Amendment made poll taxes illegal in federal elections; poll taxes in state elections were banned in 1966 by the U.S. Supreme Court.)

C
The act divided the South into five military districts and outlined how new governments were to be established, given that every adult male – regardless of race – was now allowed to vote. In the late 1870s, the Southern Republican Party vanished with the end of Reconstruction.

D
In the decades that followed, various discriminatory practices were used to prevent African-Americans from exercising their voting rights. After the passage of the Voting Rights Act, state and local enforcement of the law was weak and it often was ignored outright.