Why was the Voting Rights Act necessary in

1965? Is it necessary today?

Literacy Test,
Louisiana1960
The test was to be
taken in no more
than 10 minutes
and a single
wrong answer
resulted in a failing
grade. It was up to
the (white) registrar
to decide your
score.

Voting and Election Procedures in the US

The United States Constitution did not originally define voter
eligibility, allowing each state to determine who was eligible.
It also did not determine election procedures leaving it up to
individual states
The Constitution has gradually, and slowly, been amended to
reflect practices from which states are barred (ie. 15th, 19th,
24th, 26th)

Why was it necessary to pass a Voting Rights Act?

14th amendment (which conferred citizenship rights to all born
or naturalized in the US - incl. voting) and the 15th amendment
(expressly determining that states could not withhold voting
rights based on race or previous condition of servitude) passed
in 1868 and 1870
YET, when over 1 million newly freed men and women
registered to vote, states went to great lengths to find other ways
to disfranchise black Americans

Common Barriers to Voting in Many Southern States

(aka Redeemed states), 1965
-

literacy tests (6 states and many counties of others states)

poll taxes
grandfather clauses
limited opportunities to register
arrests and beatings
intimidation tactics and terrorism
gerrymandering of election districts to reduce strength of black
voters

Why 1965? (what took so long?!)

Why 1965?

The Civil Rights Movement brought the issue to the forefront of politics
- 1917-1960 the Great Migration led many blacks to move north where they
could more easily participate in politics and organize politically
- World War II - hypocrisy of segregated troops fighting a war against a racist
ideology abroad
- Cold War competition - civil rights issues shed a negative spotlight on the US
Televised movement - technology made it more visible and distrubing to
people farther removed

The Voting Rights Act of 1965

ended use of all qualifications and prerequisites to voting to deny the vote on the
count of race or color
no test (ie. literacy or civics) or device (ie. grandfather clause) may be used as
prerequisites to vote
identified states requiring special attention - that most severely restricted voting rights
(ie. if less than 50% of people voting age were unregistered)
in the above states, preclearance by federal judiciary branch would be necessary to
enact any changes in election procedures or eligibility requirements
the US Attorney General was authorized to appoint federal voting examiners to
oversee and/or observe voter registration and/or the conduct of elections to ensure
that legally qualified persons were free to register for elections
Poll taxes are illegal

States and Counties Subject to Preclearance

Why was the VRA found to be constitutional, despite

voter eligibility being a state power?
From the Supreme Court decision South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966), upholding the
Voting Rights Act
Congress had found that case-by-case litigation was inadequate to combat wide-spread
and persistent discrimination in voting, because of the inordinant amount of time and
energy required to overcome the obstructionist tactics invariably encountered in these
lawsuits. After enduring nearly a century of systematic resistance to the Fifteenth
Amendment, Congress might well decide to shift the advantage of time and inertia from
the perpetrators of the evil to its victims.

Changes in the number of

black legislators from 1868-1900
(red) and 1960 to 1992 (blue)