1965
THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965
Even though the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteed Black men the right to vote (and the 19th Amendment later extended that right to all women), multiple obstacles to voting remained for decades. Black people attempting to vote often were told by election officials that they had gotten the date, time, or polling place wrong or that they had filled out an application incorrectly. They were also forced to take “literacy tests,” which they often failed due to centuries of oppression and poverty. “Poll taxes” were another barrier to people who lived in poverty.
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 Representatives passed the bill by a vote of 333-85 on July 9. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965, with Dr. 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 50 percent of the non-white population had registered to vote, and authorized the U.S. attorney general to investigate the use of poll taxes in state and local elections.
In 1964, the 24th Amendment made poll taxes illegal in federal elections; poll taxes in state elections were banned in 1966 by the U.S. Supreme Court.
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 Black voters the legal means to challenge voting restrictions and vastly improved voter turnout. In Mississippi alone, voter turnout among Black people increased from 6 percent in 1964 to 59 percent in 1969. In 1964, just prior to passage of the VRA, only Mississippi had a smaller percentage of eligible African Americans registered to vote than Alabama—6.7 percent compared to 23.0 percent—though some sources say Alabama had less than that number.
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