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The Voting Rights Act of 1965 |
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A Brief History of Civil Rights in the United States of America
The Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Johnson Administration's voting rights bill was greatly influenced by what had happened with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Justice Department began immediate negotiations with Everett Dirksen of Illinois, the Republican leader in the Senate, and a "consensus" on the provisions of the bill was reached early in the bill's consideration by Congress. As a result, the Senate debate on the voting rights bill ended early with a successful cloture vote on May 25, 1965. The southerners had barely gotten their filibuster going when the cloture vote stopped them. It was the second time in two years - but only the second time in the nation's history - that the Senate had voted to forcefully end debate on a civil rights bill.
But the speed of this legislative action was significant. It had taken more than a year to get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress. It took only five months to enact the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The quick cloture vote of 1965 had been "made much easier by the precedent of the victorious cloture vote of 1964."
The new law took direct aim at black non-voting in the South. It targeted those areas where fewer than 50 percent of adults eligible to vote were actually voting, which in effect meant the bill would enfranchise blacks in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. In those states that failed to meet this 50 percent "triggering" test, U.S. Government "examiners" appointed by the executive branch would come into the state and take over the registration process from local officials. It could be argued this sending in of "Federal registrars" represented the ultimate triumph of national policy toward minorities over state and local policies.
The effects of the voting rights law were immediate and extensive. By 1967 black voter registration in six southern states had increased from 30 percent to more than 50 percent of those eligible. There was a substantial increase in the number of blacks elected to political office in the South. In 1976, when Democrat Jimmy Carter was elected president of the United States in a very close election, newly-enfranchised southern blacks were given a large share of the credit for his victory.
Andrew Young, a former aide to Martin Luther King, Jr., was working in the Carter for President campaign. When Young heard that even the deep South state of Mississippi had voted for Carter, thanks to a heavy Democratic vote from Mississippi blacks, Young remarked: "When I heard that Mississippi had gone our way, I knew that the hands that picked cotton finally picked the president."
Title:Voting rights: address to CongressSpeaker:President Lyndon B JohnsonDelivered On:March 15, 1965 Place:Washington, DC Subject:Civil Rights United States. Audio/Video Available:ListenDescription:As delivered in person before a joint session at 9:02 p.m. |
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