Fifty years ago today, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act (VRA) into law, prohibiting racial discrimination in voting.
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The Supreme Court agreed that some relaxing of the law was in order when with a 5-4 decision in 2013 along ideological lines, it allowed nine mostly southern states to change their election laws without prior approval of the federal government.
University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock said on “A Closer Look” that the Voting Rights Act was critical in increasing the number of African-American and minority voters.
A panel for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals determined the Texas law violated Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, but did not go so far – as plaintiffs had argued – that it amounted to a poll tax. “The intent of this law is to protect the voting process in Texas, and we will continue to defend this important safeguard for all Texas voters”.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said that a quarter of a million black voters were registered to vote by the end of 1965. Members of the Brazos County Democratic party were out in the community teaching others about this act and helping register them to vote.
In fact, he said, these voting laws only hurt poor and older people from getting to the polls.
Since 2010, 21 Republican-governed states have enacted restrictive voting laws requiring voters to provide identification before casting ballots.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a monumental achievement that ensured Americans around the country had the opportunity to exercise their right to vote.
The Constitution says little about voting, leaving the subject to the states.
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The League of Women Voters of the Bartlesville Area will host a voter registration event on September 22 at the Bartlesville Public Library, where volunteers will provide detailed information on topics ranging from new voter registration, precincts and access to non-partisan candidate information. News broadcasts showing police beating protesters – especially live coverage of the “Bloody Sunday” attack at the Edmund Pettus Bridge- stirred outrage that helped President Lyndon Johnson push the Voting Rights Act through Congress. Mr. Gray led a number of key cases in the state of Alabama during the Civil Rights Movement including serving as attorney to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr.
