August 6, 2009 - Posted by Andrew Noakes
Forty-four years ago today, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) into law, marking a historic turning point in civil rights history. The VRA outlawed unconstitutional restrictions on voting rights, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, which several states had introduced in an attempt to prevent African Americans and other minority groups from voting in federal, state, and local elections.
The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1870 after the end of the Civil War, declared that no citizen may be denied the vote due to "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." However, between 1876 and 1965, state and local authorities introduced measures like poll taxes and literacy tests to prevent millions of people from casting ballots because of their race.
In the early 1960s, television images of police attacking civil rights marchers shocked the nation and spurred the passage of sweeping civil rights legislation. On March 7, 1965, police in Alabama used tear gas and billy clubs to attack over 500 civil rights activists who marched from Selma to Montgomery to dramatize the call for voting rights for African Americans. The images of police brutality were broadcast worldwide.
One week later, President Johnson responded by calling on Congress to pass a voting rights bill. When he signed the VRA five months later, he remarked that it was to be "one of the most monumental laws in the entire history of American freedom."
The VRA is considered the most successful civil rights law Congress has ever passed and remains as important now as it was four decades ago. Since 1965, Congress has voted four times to renew all three of its temporary provisions, most recently in 2006, when both the House and the Senate approved the measure overwhelmingly in a bipartisan manner. Congress conducted over 20 hearings, heard from over 50 expert witnesses, and collected over 17,000 pages of testimony documenting the continued need for and constitutionality of the VRA.
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Categories: Civil Rights History, Voting Rights
