Rise of the Black Vote, 1868 Congressional Elections
		After the Civil War, the Radical Republican Congress knew that federal laws were needed to secure the right of black men to vote in the South. (Women of any race did not enjoy a Constitutional right to vote until the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.) Hence, in 1867 Congress passed the Military Reconstruction Act, which brought the vote to black men in 10 former Confederate states. The first year Southern blacks were able to participate in federal elections was 1868. This map of Republican voter turnout illustrates the effectiveness of black enfranchisement. In most of the South, majority turnout for Republicans (red and yellow) is a fair indicator of black enfranchisement, since Republicans could not win elections in most of the South without overwhelming black support. Note the high Republican vote in the same areas in the South where blacks were concentrated.
Substantial numbers of poor Southern whites from the hills west and north of the black belt also supported the Republican party, reflecting the class conflict of poor farmers against rich plantation owners in the black belt. East Tennessee was a stronghold of Unionism during the war, and of Republican party power after the war, due to the white vote. (Almost all blacks in Tenn. lived in the western part of the state; high Republican turnout in west Tenn. therefore reflects black as well as white voting power.)