The Right To Vote: A struggle for the rights for African-Americans to vote through century

On March 15, 1965 — 60 years ago next month, following horrific attacks on Civil Rights marchers in and around Selma, Alabama, by state and county police and by members of the Ku Klux Klan — President Lyndon B. Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress, calling for legislation to protect the voting rights of African Americans.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 wouldn’t be signed into law until Aug. 6. But it would be a game-changer for Black Americans.

The Right To Vote Is Gained But Then Slips Away

Black men vote in their first election soon after the end of the Civil War. Note the voter at right wearing a Union army uniform. WikiMedia commons.

In 1870, the 15th Amendment was ratified, which prohibited the federal government and individual states from denying or abridging a citizen’s right to vote on account of race, color or “previous condition of servitude.”

One might think this amendment would be clear enough, but some states — especially in the South — found a number of ways to suppress the vote among people of color, immigrants and low-income citizens.

Some used poll taxes that required citizens to pay money to vote or even to register to vote. Some used literacy tests. Some passed laws stating that only property owners could vote.

In 1910, Oklahoma passed a state constitutional amendment that stated only citizens whose grandfathers had voted in 1865 could vote. Naturally, this excluded descendants of former slaves.

In 1931, Texas passed a law that prohibited African Americans from voting in the Democratic Party primary. Since there were hardly any Republicans in Texas at the time, this effectively kept Black citizens from voting.

And in some areas, the Ku Klux Klan and other groups intimidated African Americans from voting.

Women were given the right to vote with ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. But some state laws made it difficult for Black women to vote.

These voter suppression efforts ramped up in the 1950s and 1960s, even as the struggle for civil rights heated up.

This poll tax reminder from Amarilo, Texas, is on display at the Smithsonian. Source: Charles Apple/S-R

The Voting Rights Act of 1965

The SNCC, or Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was an organization of young people who emerged from the 1960 lunch counter sit-in protests. The group began voter registration drives around the country, especially in small Southern towns.

President Lyndon B. Johnson took office after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and won a presidential term of his own that began in January 1965. In addition, Democrats had gained large majorities in both chambers of Congress. Johnson asked his attorney general, Nicholas Katzenbach, to draft “the goddamnedest, toughest voting rights act that you can.”

Attacks by law enforcement officers and Klan members on attempts to hold a voting rights protest march in Selma, Alabama — where only 2% of the city’s Black population had been allowed to register to vote — in March 7, 1965, made it clear to Johnson that it had come time to put his plan in motion.

On March 9, Johnson announced he had experts working on federal legislation to protect voting rights. Six days later, Johnson addressed a nationally televised joint session of Congress.

“There is no Negro problem,” Johnson said, “There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem.”

He called on legislators to pass the legislation he was proposing to protect voting rights.

Within 24 hours, the White House had reportedly received 1,436 telegrams in support of Johnson’s address with only 82 telegrams against. A poll taken after the address showed 76% of Americans supported Johnson’s Voting Rights Act with 16% against.

Some senators expressed reluctance to support voting rights so soon after the previous year’s Civil Rights Act, but after reviewing photos and video of police violence against marchers in Selma, agreed the time had come for “revolutionary” legislation.

Johnson feared an attempt at a filibuster by Southern Democrats, so he worked behind the scenes to help garner support.

The bill was introduced in the Senate on March 17 by Democratic majority leader Mike Mansfield and Republican minority leader Everett Dirksen. Another 64 senators then agreed to co-sponsor the bill.

In addition to barring many of the practices states had used to limit voting among African Americans and other targeted groups, the act included provisions that required states and local jurisdictions with a history of voter suppression to submit changes in their election laws to the U.S. Department of Justice for approval or “preclearance.”

It was this aspect of the bill that drew the most criticism from opponents. Nevertheless, the Senate passed the Voting Rights Act on May 26. The House then passed it on July 9, but with amendments.

A conference committee worked out a compromise that was endorsed by Martin Luther King Jr. That version was passed by the House on Aug. 3 and by the Senate the next day.

Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on Aug. 6, with a number of Civil Rights leaders including King and Rosa Parks, present. The legislation had flowed from a “clear and simple wrong,” Johnson said, and its purpose was to “right that wrong.”

Over the years, as various provisions of the Voting Rights Act began to expire, Congress has expanded and amended the act a number of times. In 1975, Congress required some jurisdictions to offer ballots and voting information in languages other than English. In 1982, provisions were added to assist elderly and handicapped voters.

Voting Rights Are Endangered Yet Again

Passage of the Voting Rights Act resulted in more African Americans registering to vote and voting, but it’s become clear over the past few years that curtailment of minority voters is again on the rise.

In June 2013, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Shelby County (Alabama) v. Holder that it is arbitrary and no longer necessary for the act to focus exclusively on states of the former Confederacy and eliminated the “pre-clearance” requirement for nine Southern states.

In her dissent in the case, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote, “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”

Later that year, North Carolina enacted a voter identification law that was seen by many as an attempt to suppress the votes of people of color. That law was later struck down by a federal judge who said it targeted African Americans with “almost surgical precision.” But similar voter ID laws were passed by Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Virginia.

By 2018, some states had begun reducing the number of polling places, reducing hours of operation, restricting early voting and aggressively purging voter rolls — all with a disproportionate impact on minority communities.

The nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice says it has “shown that voter fraud and illegal voting — often cited to justify regressive voting laws— aren’t widespread. Our studies have also found that racial minorities are much more likely than whites to lack accepted voter ID.”

The Brennan Center points out that legislation has been proposed in an effort to restore protections that had been offered by the original Voting Rights Act.

n The Freedom to Vote Act would aim to block anti-voter efforts by states.

n The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would restore and update the full protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

“Congress came achingly close to passing this package in 2022,” the Brennan Center writes. “Our democracy can’t wait.”