How Many African Americans Registered To Vote 1964 Qyuzket

The Voting Rights Human action of 1965, signed into constabulary by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.Due south. Constitution. The Voting Rights Deed is considered ane of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.Southward. history.

Sentinel: The Civil Rights Movement on HISTORY Vault

Selma to Montgomery March

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 button for legislation he believed would improve the American way of life, such equally stronger voting-rights laws.

Afterwards the Ceremonious War, the 15th Subpoena, ratified in 1870, prohibited states from denying a male citizen the right to vote based on "race, color or previous condition of servitude." Notwithstanding, in the ensuing decades, various discriminatory practices were used to foreclose African Americans, peculiarly those in the Due south, from exercising their correct to vote.

During the civil rights motion of the 1950s and 1960s, voting rights activists in the Due south were subjected to various forms of mistreatment and violence. One event that outraged many Americans occurred on March 7, 1965, when peaceful participants in a Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights were met by Alabama state troopers who attacked them with nightsticks, tear gas and whips after they refused to plough back.

Some protesters were severely beaten and bloodied, and others ran for their lives. The incident was captured on national television.

In the wake of the shocking incident, Johnson called for comprehensive voting rights legislation. In a speech to a joint session of Congress on March fifteen, 1965, the president outlined the devious ways in which ballot officials denied African American citizens the vote.

READ MORE: When Did African Americans Get the Right to Vote?

Literacy Tests

Black people attempting to vote frequently were told by ballot officials that they had gotten the date, time or polling place wrong, that they possessed bereft literacy skills or that they had filled out an application incorrectly. Black people, whose population suffered a loftier rate of illiteracy due to centuries of oppression and poverty, frequently would be forced to take literacy tests, which they sometimes failed.

Johnson likewise told Congress that voting officials, primarily in Southern states, had been known to force Black voters to "recite the unabridged Constitution or explain the most complex provisions of state laws," a task almost white voters would have been difficult-pressed to accomplish. In some cases, fifty-fifty Black people with higher degrees were turned away from the polls.

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READ MORE: How Jim Crow-Era Laws Suppressed the African American Vote for Generations

Voting Rights Human action Signed into Law

The voting rights nib was passed in the U.S. Senate by a 77-19 vote on May 26, 1965. After debating the bill for more than than a month, the U.Southward. House of Representatives passed the bill past a vote of 333-85 on July ix.

Johnson signed the Voting Rights Deed into constabulary on Baronial half dozen, 1965, with Martin Luther Male monarch, Jr. and other ceremonious rights leaders present at the anniversary.

The human action banned the utilise of literacy tests, provided for federal oversight of voter registration in areas where less than 50 percentage of the non-white population had registered to vote, and authorized the U.S. attorney full general to investigate the use of poll taxes in land and local elections.

In 1964, the 24th Amendment made poll taxes illegal in federal elections; poll taxes in country elections were banned in 1966 by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Voter Turnout Rises in the South

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 condition quo.

Still, the Voting Rights Act gave African American voters the legal ways to challenge voting restrictions and vastly improved voter turnout. In Mississippi lone, voter turnout amidst Black people increased from 6 percentage in 1964 to 59 per centum in 1969.

TIMELINE: Voting Rights in the United States

Changes to the Voting Rights Human action

Since its passage, the Voting Rights Deed has been amended to include such features as the protection of voting rights for not-English speaking American citizens. Information technology has also been walked dorsum. In 2013, the U.South. Supreme Court ruled in a v-iv vote that constraints placed on certain states and federal review of states' voting procedures were outdated. In the wake of the Shelby County v. Holder determination, several states began enacting laws limiting voter admission, including ID requirements, limits on early voting, mail-in voting and more.

READ MORE: Civil Rights Movement Timeline