Essay On The Voting Rights Movement

“What gets lost is that the Republican Party has always been the party of civil rights and voting rights.” The voting rights act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on August 6, 1965. They aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote under the 15th Amendment. The act significally widened the franchise and is considered among the most for- reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history. The voting rights act took place during the civil rights movement. The voting rights act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on August 6, 1965. The voting rights bill was passed in the U.S. House of representatives passed the bill by a vote of 333-85 on July 9, for more than a month. Johnson signed the voting rights act into law on August 6, 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 50 percent of the nonwhite population had not registered to vote, and authorized the U.S. attorney general to investigate the use of poll taxes illegal in federal elections, …show more content…
The 15th amendment, granting African American men the right to vote, was formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution on March 30, 1870. Despite the amendment, by the late 1870s, various discriminatory practices were used to prevent African Americans from exercising their right to vote, especially in the South. State and local enforcements of the law was weak and it often was ignored outright, mainly in the South and in areas where the population was high and their vote threatened the political status quo. In Mississippi alone, voter turnout among blacks increased from 6 percent in 1964 to 59 percent in