Voting Rights Act

Voting Rights Act. Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Memorial Park. , 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 act significantly widened the franchise and is considered among the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history. , , Shortly following the American Civil War (1861-1865), the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, guaranteeing that the right to vote would not be denied “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Soon afterward the U.S. Congress enacted legislation that made it a federal crime to interfere with an individual’s right to vote and that otherwise protected the rights promised to former slaves under both the Fourteenth (1868) and Fifteenth amendments. In some states of the former Confederacy, African Americans became a majority or near majority of the eligible voting population, and African American candidates ran and were elected to office at all levels of government. , , Nevertheless, there was strong opposition to the extension of the franchise to African Americans. Following the end of Reconstruction in 1877, the Supreme Court of the United States limited voting protections under federal legislation, and intimidation and fraud were employed by white leaders to reduce voter registration and turnout among African Americans to vote, but such legislation was only partially successful. In 1964 the Civil Rights Act was passed and the twenty-fourth Amendment, abolishing poll taxes for federal offices, was ratified, and the following year Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson called for the implementation of comprehensive federal legislation to protect voting rights. The resulting act, the Voting Rights Act, suspended literacy test, provided for federal approval of proposed changes to the voting laws or procedures (“preclearance”) in jurisdictions that previously used tests to determine voter eligibility (these areas were covered under Sections 4 and 5 of the legislation), and directed the attorney general of the United States to challenge the use of poll taxes for state and local elections. An expansion of the law in the 1970s also protected voting rights for non-English-speaking U.S. citizens. Sections 4 and 5 were extended for 5 years in 1970, 7 years in 1975, and 25 years in both 1982 and 2006.