The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was introduced in Congress on March 17, 1965, as S. 1564, and it was jointly sponsored by Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield (D-MT) and Senate minority leader Everett Dirksen (R-IL), both of whom had worked with Attorney General Katzenbach to draft the bill's language. [43]

Nov 9, 2009 · The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from...

Feb 8, 2022 · The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the most significant statutory change in the relationship between the federal and state governments in the area of voting since the Reconstruction period following the Civil War; and it was immediately challenged in the courts.

Jan 17, 2025 · Voting Rights Act is a piece of U.S. legislation (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 United States Constitution.

Jul 28, 2017 · President Johnson signed the resulting legislation into law on August 6, 1965. Section 2 of the Act, which closely followed the language of the 15th amendment, applied a nationwide prohibition against the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on the literacy tests on a nationwide basis.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 remains one of the hardest-fought safeguards for Black Americans and other minority groups as it relates to voting. The power, agency, and access to vote is a civil right for all.

Jul 17, 2023 · What is the Voting Rights Act of 1965? Regarded as the legislative crown jewel of the civil rights era, the Voting Rights Act was enacted as a comprehensive tool meant to undo the political hold of Jim Crow policies in the South and related discriminatory structures nationwide.

AN ACT To enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this Act shall be known as the ‘‘Voting Rights Act of 1965’’. ø52 U.S.C. 10101 note¿ TITLE I—VOTING RIGHTS ...

Jun 19, 2019 · Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which aimed to increase the number of people registered to vote in areas where there was a record of previous discrimination.

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.