US History

Postwar United States (1945 to early 1970s)

African Americans

Law and Government

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

A joint resolution proposing the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, 1869.

This is the proposed resolution to the United States Congress from February 26, 1869. It resolves that the Constitution of the United States be amended to allow citizens to vote, regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” It was ratified on February 3, 1870. Because the Fourteenth Amendment limited suffrage to male citizens over twenty-one years of age, women were excluded. 

A 1926 letter from William E. Borah to W. E. B. Du Bois about the Fifteenth Amendment. 

This is a letter from Senator William E. Borah of Idaho, who was part of the progressive movement, to W.E.B. Du Bois, a scholar, civil rights leader, and one of the founders of the NAACP. Senator Borah expresses his disapproval of the Fifteenth Amendment, yet believes it should be carried out in good faith. He maintains to Du Bois that the American South had done, and was doing, all it could to help the “negro.” This letter demonstrates deep-seated racism that the legislative process failed to erase. For example, the senator attempts to convince Du Bois that anti-lynching legislation was unfounded and based on falsehoods. This letter comes fifty-six years after the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, at a time of widespread disenfranchisement. 

An 1872 political cartoon called “One Vote Less,” which comments on racial violence during Reconstruction.

“One Vote Less” is a political cartoon from the prominent nineteenth- century artist Thomas Nast, taken from the *Richmond Whig*. The cartoon shows a murdered African American with trauma to his head. The markings next to the body say “Negro Killed,” “Greeley Ratification,” and “KKK.” “Greeley Ratification” may refer to Horace Greeley, a Presidential candidate in 1872. During this time the South saw a rise in white supremacist terror organizations like the Ku Klux Klan. One of the prime objectives of these organizations was to prevent African Americans from voting through intimidation and murder. 

A poll-tax petition from 1930s Tennessee.

This is a petition sponsored by the Committee for Progressive Legislation of the Tennessee Legislative Congress. It, and others like it, were circulated to protest poll taxes that were legislated in the post-Reconstruction South. Poll taxes were used to disenfranchise African Americans. “Grandfather clauses” provided a loophole for poor white citizens: If one’s family could have been registered to vote in the 1860 election, one would not need to pay the poll tax. 

A 1958 citizenship test from the Georgia State Voter Registration Act.

Applicants for voter registration were required to read and write a section of the Georgia Constitution as a literacy test. If they could not read or write, they could take an oral examination to demonstrate that they understood "the duties of citizenship under a republican form of government." Applicants had to correctly answer twenty out of thirty questions. Like so many laws passed before it, this legislation targeted African Americans who had limited access to education because of the systematic racism of Jim Crow laws. 

An excerpt from The Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The excerpted pages provide a description of the Act. This description states what voter restrictions will be outlawed, how these will be assessed, who will oversee the cessation, and the requirements for these workers. This Act represents the legislative and legal goals of countless activists and others through two centuries who fought to achieve equality for African Americans and end legal discrimination towards people of color. 

A photograph of President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act, 1965.

This photograph shows President Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. appears in the photo standing behind Johnson among politicians and civil rights activists. 

A television news clip of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking about the Summer Community Organization and Political Education project, June 1965.

In this WSB-TV newsfilm clip from June 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks to an Atlanta audience about the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Summer Community Organization and Political Education (SCOPE) project. Dr. King emphasizes the connection between political and economic power and indicates the significance of SCOPE's plans to assist African Americans with voter registration. King asserts that with hard work, guidance, and cooperation, it will be possible to double the number of registered African American voters. Dr. King’s remarks, particularly about the ongoing economic and social barriers faced by African Americans, demonstrate the limitations of legislation like the Voting Rights Act of 1965. For everyone involved in the movement, the fight continued even after its successes began to dismantle *de jure* (legal) segregation, focusing also on *de facto* (situational or practiced) segregation and racism. 

A photograph of marchers on the third Selma to Montgomery civil rights march, March 25, 1965.

In this photograph, both African American and white marchers stand under flags during the third civil rights march from Selma, Alabama to the state capital of Montgomery. Two previous marches occurred on March 7 and March 9. The first ended in horrific violence against marchers, which captured national and international media attention. On March 15, after the first two marches and before the third, President Johnson gave a speech to Congress urging them to pass his voting rights bill. 

An excerpt from a television news broadcast in March 1965 in which Carl Sanders, the governor of Georgia, speaks on voting rights.

In this clip, Georgia state officials, particularly the governor, address the upcoming Voting Rights Act. They are defensive towards what they interpret to be federal power overstepping its rightful limits into state laws. 

An excerpt from a 1975 report from the United States Commission on Civil Rights about the Voting Rights Act after ten years.

This excerpt from a report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights provides the commission’s findings on the impact of the Act, the need to renew it, and ways to enhance its authority. The list of recommendations in this report demonstrate that many discriminatory voting conditions still exist. 

An excerpt from congressional hearings on voting rights from 1993.

Within this vast collection of testimonies before the House of Representatives subcommittee on civil and constitutional rights, Professor Robert J. Norrell outlines many of the continued challenges faced by African Americans after the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In particular, he focuses on the use of gerrymandering to limit the enfranchisement of people of color. 

The 2006 Act to Amend the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The second section of this amendment describes the continued obstacles to full enfranchisement for people of color, particularly African Americans. It provides recommendations for continued progress in this area. 

An excerpt from a 2014 US Senate hearing on the Voting Rights Amendment Act.

In a statement before a US Senate committee, Rev. Dr. Francys Johnson, State President of the Georgia NAACP, reflects on *Shelby v. Holder* and describes the challenges still faced by African Americans in his state. In *Shelby v Holder*, the US Supreme Court ruled that section 4b of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional, which severely limited the federal government’s oversight of voting and electoral processes and sent much of this power back to the states. Dr. Johnson reflects on this case’s impact in his community as well as in his own life. This source includes many similar testimonials. 

Questions

1. Examine the [Fifteenth Amendment](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/voting-rights-act-of-1965/sources/1383) and the [letter from Senator Borah](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/voting-rights-act-of-1965/sources/1384). Explain the historical context of the Amendment. What is Senator Borah’s perspective on the Amendment? How does his perspective demonstrate the limits of legislation in eliminating racism?
2. What obstacles to African American enfranchisement are demonstrated in the [political cartoon](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/voting-rights-act-of-1965/sources/1385), [poll-tax petition](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/voting-rights-act-of-1965/sources/1386), and [citizenship test](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/voting-rights-act-of-1965/sources/1387)? How did “grandfather clauses” provide access for poor white southerners? How and why might the citizenship test be an unreasonable voting requirement?
3. Create a list of the goals spelled out in the [Voting Rights Act of 1965](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/voting-rights-act-of-1965/sources/1388). 
4. What is the significance of the gathering of witnesses shown in the [photograph of the signing of the Voting Rights Act](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/voting-rights-act-of-1965/sources/1389)? 
5. Martin Luther King, Jr. is present in the [photograph of the signing of the Voting Rights Act](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/voting-rights-act-of-1965/sources/1389). What further concerns does King express in the [television news clip](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/voting-rights-act-of-1965/sources/1390)? What issues are difficult for the legislation to address?
6. In the [television news broadcast](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/voting-rights-act-of-1965/sources/1392) from March 1965, Georgia state officials offer multiple objections to the proposed Voting Rights Act. Create a list describing these objections. 
7. The [1975 report](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/voting-rights-act-of-1965/sources/1393) and [1993 congressional hearings](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/voting-rights-act-of-1965/sources/1394) address the progression or regression of voting rights, ten and twenty-nine years after the Voting Rights Act. Create a chart of what difficulties remained at these times. In particular, focus on the impact of gerrymandering within states.
8. Examine the [2006 Act to Amend the Voting Rights Act](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/voting-rights-act-of-1965/sources/1395). What reasons are given for the necessity of an amendment? During the [2014 US Senate hearing](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/voting-rights-act-of-1965/sources/1396), what does Dr. Johnson say about damage done by *Shelby v. Holder* to the voting rights of minority groups? 

Activity

After reading, reflecting, and working through the discussion questions, ask students to create lists of the remaining challenges and obstacles to full enfranchisement of people of color, particularly African Americans. Students can then brainstorm possible solutions to these challenges, both legislative and non-legislative, but especially the latter. In groups, ask students to prepare a policy proposal to a local organization or government body explaining and recommending one of these solutions. 

Teaching Guide: Exploring the Voting Rights Act of 1965

Resources

1. [Congress and the Voting Rights Act of 1965](https://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/voting-rights-1965), National Archives and Records Administration. 
2. [History of Federal Voting Rights Laws](https://www.justice.gov/crt/history-federal-voting-rights-laws), United States Department of Justice. 
3. “[The Voting Rights Act at 50: How It Changed the World](http://time.com/3985479/voting-rights-act-1965-results/),” *Time*. 
4. “[A Dream Undone](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/29/magazine/voting-rights-act-dream-undone.html?_r=0),” *The New York Times Magazine*. 

Overview

In 1865, 1868, and 1870, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the US Constitution guaranteed black citizens important freedoms—outlawing slavery, granting universal citizenship and due process, and extended voting rights to all men. But the triumph of the “Reconstruction Amendments” was short-lived. In 1877, the federal government abandoned military Reconstruction in the South, which ushered in almost a century of “Jim Crow” legislation enforcing segregation and inequality. In cases including the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 and *Plessy v. Ferguson* (1896), the Supreme Court supported the constitutionality of discrimination and segregation. Thus the battle for freedom, citizenship, and enfranchisement continued long after the Civil War and Reconstruction. 

Though the [Fifteenth Amendment](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sets/the-fifteenth-amendment) extended enfranchisement to every male citizen regardless of race, for decades this right was all but erased by poll taxes, literacy tests, terror, murder, and intimidation aimed at preventing black people from voting. In the 1950s and 1960s, the civil rights movement worked to end these and other racist practices, organizing protests and political actions such as the Montgomery bus boycott (1955-56), the Freedom Rides (1961), the March on Washington (1963), and the Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches (1965), among many others. These years saw legislative and judicial victories, and in 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” The federal government needed to do more to ensure fair voter registration and election procedures across the country, however. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 put in place procedures and overseers to guarantee full enfranchisement for African Americans and people of color. 

Yet the battle for voting rights continues to the present day. Gerrymandering and legislation still perpetuate discriminatory practices. In the 2013 case *Shelby County v. Holder*, the US Supreme Court struck down key parts of the Voting Rights Act, claiming that federal oversight was no longer justified. The sources in this set provide further insight into the context of this important Act: Why was it necessary? What did it do? Have its goals been achieved? 

English

Voting Rights Act of 1965

voting-rights-act_09_7815ddbda7746873a2569f37edb3014c.jpg

Courtesy of Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries via Digital Commonwealth.

Nash, Herman B., “Marchers under a battery of American flags,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/7815ddbda7746873a2569f37edb3014c. 

A photograph of marchers on the third Selma to Montgomery civil rights march, March 25, 1965.

Cite this item

Tips for Students

Item 9 of 14 in the Primary Source Set Voting Rights Act of 1965