Sofia Migala

5/25/18

Voting Rights Act of 1965

A) On March 7, 1965, a group of voting rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge

(located in Selma, Alabama) were “violently confronted by law enforcement personnel,”

becoming known as “Bloody Saturday” (1). On March 21, however, the march continued

after Federal District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., who said “the law is clear that

the right to petition one's government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in

large groups...and these rights may be exercised by marching, even along public

highways” (1). Therefore, instead of the initial 600 people, 3,200 people, marched across

the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Eventually, while walking along the 54-mile highway from

Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery, they were “25,000 strong” (1).

Furthermore, less than five months later, President “Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting

Rights Act of 1965 -- the best possible redress of grievances” (1). This Act forever

changed the legal barriers that prevented African-Americans from practicing in their right

to vote (2).

B) To “disenfranchise” is to deprive a group of people of a legal right, especially of the

right to vote (3). All throughout the United States’ history, white Americans (especially

in the south) have passed numerous types of legislation to disenfranchise minority

groups, especially African-Americans. In the 1960’s however, “the federal government

 became actively involved in ending discriminatory voting practices. In addition, the

federal government set new procedures for voter registration, which made it easier to

register and vote” (4). The 1960’s were a pivotal and important time for

African-Americans, being the beginning of the real process of securing their civil

liberties and rights, especially to vote.

C) In 1964, in Philadelphia, Mississippi, Michael Schwerner, a civil rights worker, along

with two other men, were killed by the Ku Klux Klan during the “Mississippi Freedom

Summer” (5), which was “...a nonviolent effort by civil rights activists to integrate

Mississippi's segregated political system during 1964” (6). These men were killed due to

their activism and promotion of voter registration among African-Americans. Their

murders furthered the fight for black voting rights, and eventually “...helped to galvanize

the Civil Rights Movement and support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965” (5).

D) The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is linked to the 15th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

(2). The 15th Amendment notes that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote

shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race,

color, or previous condition of servitude” (7). This is extremely ironic because even in

1965, 178 years after the Constitution was ratified, this amendment was still not being

followed or respected! It’s ironic, as well, that in modern days, many people take the

Second Amendment MUCH more serious than the 15th, even though the 15th deals with

actual human rights! The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits racial discrimination in

voting, and is a bit of a reinforcement of the 15th Amendment. They are directly linked.
E) Montgomery and Selma, Alabama, are where the African-American voting rights protest

marches were held in 1965 (8). Alabama, being in the deep South, was one of the more

racist states. The sheer quantity of participants of the protests in Montgomery and Selma,

along with the participation of Martin Luther King, Jr., brought significant attention to

the marches and the entire Civil Rights movement in general.

F) In the wake of the Selma to Montgomery incidents, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was

signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Directly after the act was passed, it was

sometimes outright ignored, and the status quo remained, mostly in the South (2). Still,

however, the “Voting Rights Act gave African-American voters the legal means to

challenge voting restrictions and vastly improved voter turnout. In ​Mississippi​ alone,

voter turnout among blacks increased from 6 percent in 1964, to 59 percent in 1969” (2).

Furthermore, in more modern times, the VRA has been amended to include such features

as “the protection of voting rights for non-English speaking American citizens” (2).

G) Shelby County v. Holder​ was a June 25, 2013, Supreme Court decision that “struck down

the formula used in Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act as unconstitutional” (9). The case

involved two provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Section 5 and Section 4.

Section 4 established a “formula to identify areas [where ‘ racial discrimination in voting

had been more prevalent in certain areas of the country’ (10)] and to provide for more

stringent remedies where appropriate” (10). The Supreme Court ultimately decided that

this section was unconstitutional. This decision changed the Voting Rights Act in that it

declares that “until Congress passes legislation with a new formula for preclearance
 under Section 4, jurisdictions that were covered by the previous formula are free to make

election changes” without approval from the Federal Government (10).

H) According to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, “districts must be constructed

to have a ‘Black Voting Age Population’ (BVAP) of 50% plus one” (11). However, this

did not apply to the North Carolina General Assembly, and they “prepare[d] a

redistricting plan for U.S. House of Representatives districts” (11). Then, “David Harris

and Christine Bowser, [U.S. citizens registered to vote in the two districts at issue]... sued

and argued that North Carolina used the Voting Rights Act’s requirements as a pretext to

place more black voters in those two districts to reduce black voters’ influence in other

districts” (11). In the end, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Harris.

I) The new “Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity” was a Presidential

Commission signed by Donald Trump on May 11, 2017. It was appointed after “Trump

had made unsubstantiated claims that 3 million to 5 million people had fraudulently voted

in the 2016 election” (12). Its “formal charge” was to investigate “‘those vulnerabilities

in voting systems... used for Federal elections that could lead to improper voter

registrations and improper voting, including fraudulent voter registrations and fraudulent

voting”’ (12). This commission is expected to weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It

essentially makes it harder for the people to vote and makes it harder for the states to new

regulations because it “was to request the states to send it their voter registration lists,

including personal information such as Social Security numbers” (11). If anything, this

commission makes it harder for African-Americans voting rights to prosper as they

should.
WORKS CITED:

1) “Edmund Winston Pettus Bridge”

https://www.nps.gov/semo/learn/historyculture/edmund-winston-pettus-bridge.htm

2) “VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965”

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/voting-rights-act

3) “Disenfranchise”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disenfranchise

4) “Voting - Attempts At Disenfranchisement”

http://law.jrank.org/pages/11161/Voting-Attempts-at-Disenfranchisement.html

5) “Michael Schwerner Biography”

https://www.biography.com/people/michael-schwerner

6) “What Was the 1964 Freedom Summer Project?”

https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS3707

7) “United States of America 1789 (rev. 1992)”

https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/United_States_of_America_1992

8) “Selma to Montgomery March

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/selma-montgomery-march

9) “What was Shelby County v. Holder?”

https://www.vox.com/cards/voting-rights-fight-explained/what-was-shelby-count
y-v-holder

10) “Cooper v. Harris”

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/mccrory-v-harris/
11) “Cooper v. Harris’
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2016/15-1262

12) “Trump's controversial election integrity commission is gone. Here's what comes next.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/01/04/trumps-cont
roversial-election-integrity-commission-is-gone-heres-what-comes-next/?noredire
ct=on&utm_term=.b317f7930ff5