what led to the voting rights act of 1965
The Voting Rights Human activity of 1965, signed into constabulary past President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Subpoena to the U.S. Constitution. The Voting Rights Act is considered i of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history.
Lookout: The Ceremonious Rights Movement on HISTORY Vault
Selma to Montgomery March
Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the presidency in Nov 1963 upon the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In the presidential race of 1964, Johnson was officially elected in a landslide victory and used this mandate to push for legislation he believed would better the American way of life, such as stronger voting-rights laws.
After the Civil War, the 15th Subpoena, ratified in 1870, prohibited states from denying a male citizen the right to vote based on "race, color or previous status of servitude." Nevertheless, in the ensuing decades, various discriminatory practices were used to forbid African Americans, especially those in the South, from exercising their right to vote.
During the civil rights motion of the 1950s and 1960s, voting rights activists in the South were subjected to various forms of mistreatment and violence. I effect that outraged many Americans occurred on March 7, 1965, when peaceful participants in a Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights were met past Alabama land troopers who attacked them with nightsticks, tear gas and whips afterward they refused to turn back.
Some protesters were severely browbeaten and bloodied, and others ran for their lives. The incident was captured on national television.
In the wake of the shocking incident, Johnson called for comprehensive voting rights legislation. In a speech to a joint session of Congress on March xv, 1965, the president outlined the devious ways in which election officials denied African American citizens the vote.
READ MORE: When Did African Americans Get the Right to Vote?
Literacy Tests
Black people attempting to vote often were told by election officials that they had gotten the date, time or polling place incorrect, that they possessed insufficient literacy skills or that they had filled out an application incorrectly. Black people, whose population suffered a high rate of illiteracy due to centuries of oppression and poverty, often would be forced to have literacy tests, which they sometimes failed.
Johnson too told Congress that voting officials, primarily in Southern states, had been known to force Blackness voters to "recite the entire Constitution or explain the most complex provisions of state laws," a task virtually white voters would have been hard-pressed to accomplish. In some cases, even Black people with college degrees were turned away from the polls.
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READ MORE: How Jim Crow-Era Laws Suppressed the African American Vote for Generations
Voting Rights Human activity Signed into Police force
The voting rights nib was passed in the U.Southward. Senate by a 77-xix vote on May 26, 1965. After debating the bill for more than a month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the beak by a vote of 333-85 on July 9.
Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965, with Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders present at the ceremony.
The act banned the use of literacy tests, provided for federal oversight of voter registration in areas where less than fifty pct of the not-white population had registered to vote, and authorized the U.South. attorney general to investigate the use of poll taxes in land and local elections.
In 1964, the 24th Subpoena made poll taxes illegal in federal elections; poll taxes in country elections were banned in 1966 by the U.S. Supreme Courtroom.
Voter Turnout Rises in the S
Although the Voting Rights Human activity passed, state and local enforcement of the police was weak, and it often was ignored outright, mainly in the South and in areas where the proportion of Black people in the population was loftier and their vote threatened the political status quo.
Still, the Voting Rights Human activity gave African American voters the legal means to claiming voting restrictions and vastly improved voter turnout. In Mississippi alone, voter turnout amidst Blackness people increased from 6 pct in 1964 to 59 percent in 1969.
TIMELINE: Voting Rights in the United States
Changes to the Voting Rights Deed
Since its passage, the Voting Rights Act has been amended to include such features as the protection of voting rights for not-English language speaking American citizens. Information technology has also been walked dorsum. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 vote that constraints placed on sure states and federal review of states' voting procedures were outdated. In the wake of the Shelby County five. Holder decision, several states began enacting laws limiting voter admission, including ID requirements, limits on early on voting, postal service-in voting and more.
READ More than: Ceremonious Rights Move Timeline
Source: https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/voting-rights-act
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