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Voting Rights Act of 1965. An Act to enforce the fifteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States, and for other purposes. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting.
- Shelby County V. Holder
Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), was a landmark...
- Voting rights in the United States
1965: Protection of voter registration and voting for racial...
- Shelby County V. Holder
- Selma to Montgomery March
- Literacy Tests
- Voting Rights Act Signed Into Law
- Voter Turnout Rises in The South
- Changes to The Voting Rights Act
Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the presidency in November 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 improve the American way of life, such as stronger voting-rights laws. After the Civil ...
Black people attempting to vote often were told by election officials that they had gotten the date, time or polling place wrong, 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...
The voting rights bill was passed in the U.S. Senate by a 77-19 vote on May 26, 1965. After debating the bill for more than a month, the U.S. House of Representativespassed the bill 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 th...
Although the Voting Rights Act passed, state and local enforcement of the law 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 high and their vote threatened the political status quo. Still, the Voting Rights Act gave African American voters the legal means to c...
Since its passage, the Voting Rights Act has been amended to include such features as the protection of voting rights for non-English speaking American citizens. It has also been walked back. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 vote that constraints placed on certain states and federal review of states’ voting procedures were outdated. I...
The U.S. Congress enacted major amendments to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in 1970, 1975, 1982, 1992, and 2006. Each of these amendments coincided with an impending expiration of some of the Act's special provisions, which originally were set to expire by 1970.
- June 22, 1970
- Voting Rights Act of 1965
- An Act To extend the Voting Rights Act of 1965 with respect to the discriminatory use of tests, and for other purposes
- the 91st United States Congress
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Apr 19, 2024 · Voting Rights Act, U.S. legislation (August 6, 1965) that aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote under the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) to the Constitution of the United States.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 abolished literacy tests and poll taxes designed to disenfranchise African American voters and gave the federal government the authority to take over voter registration in counties with a pattern of persistent discrimination.
Learn about the history and impact of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed discriminatory voting practices in the South and required federal preclearance of new voting rules. The act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on August 6, 1965, and was challenged and strengthened by the Supreme Court over time.
