Voting Rights Act of 1965
By: Charlotte Froehlich
Main Focus
On 6 August 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, calling the day ‘‘a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield’’ (Johnson, ‘‘Remarks in the Capitol Rotunda’’). The law was set in place seven months after Martin Luther King launched a Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) campaign based in Selma, Alabama, with the aim of pressuring Congress to pass such legislation.
Martin Luther King wrote in Selma, ‘‘we see a classic pattern of disenfranchisement typical of the Southern Black Belt areas where Negroes are in the majority’’. In addition to facing literacy tests and poll taxes, African Americans in Selma and other southern towns were harassed and assaulted when they sought to register to vote. Civil rights activists drew the line and started to make sure their voices were heard. This attracted national attention on March 7,1965 when civil rights workers were brutally attacked by white law enforcement officers on a march from Selma to Montgomery.
Johnson introduced the Voting Rights Act that same month, ‘‘with the outrage of Selma still fresh’’. In just over four months, Congress passed the bill. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 banned literacy tests and poll taxes designed to exclude African American voters, and gave the federal government the authority to take over voter registration in counties with a continuous discrimination. ‘‘This law covers many pages,’’ Johnson said before signing the bill, ‘‘but the heart of the act is plain. Wherever, by clear and objective standards, States and counties are using regulations, or laws, or tests to deny the right to vote, then they will be struck down’’.
- eliminated voter literacy tests
- enabled federal examiners to register voters
On 6 August 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, calling the day ‘‘a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield’’ (Johnson, ‘‘Remarks in the Capitol Rotunda’’). The law was set in place seven months after Martin Luther King launched a Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) campaign based in Selma, Alabama, with the aim of pressuring Congress to pass such legislation.
Martin Luther King wrote in Selma, ‘‘we see a classic pattern of disenfranchisement typical of the Southern Black Belt areas where Negroes are in the majority’’. In addition to facing literacy tests and poll taxes, African Americans in Selma and other southern towns were harassed and assaulted when they sought to register to vote. Civil rights activists drew the line and started to make sure their voices were heard. This attracted national attention on March 7,1965 when civil rights workers were brutally attacked by white law enforcement officers on a march from Selma to Montgomery.
Johnson introduced the Voting Rights Act that same month, ‘‘with the outrage of Selma still fresh’’. In just over four months, Congress passed the bill. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 banned literacy tests and poll taxes designed to exclude African American voters, and gave the federal government the authority to take over voter registration in counties with a continuous discrimination. ‘‘This law covers many pages,’’ Johnson said before signing the bill, ‘‘but the heart of the act is plain. Wherever, by clear and objective standards, States and counties are using regulations, or laws, or tests to deny the right to vote, then they will be struck down’’.