AP+2016+Voting+Rights+Act+of+1965

Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Andi)
 * 1) Aim: Though the fifteenth amendment granted the right to vote African American men across the nation, many state and local governments devised loopholes through which they could continue to deny citizens the right to vote based on race. States in the south especially guilty of that discrimination. In these states,“Blacks attempting to vote often were told by election officials that they had gotten the date, time or polling place wrong, that they possessed insufficient literacy skills or that they had filled out an application incorrectly. Blacks, whose population suffered a high rate of illiteracy due to centuries of oppression and poverty, often would be forced to take literacy tests, which they inevitably failed” (“Voting Rights Act) However, this discrimination came to an end in 1965 when Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act, which eliminated these loopholes that states from preventing African Americans to vote based on race. The act was designed to ban literacy tests and discriminatory requirements in order to ensure that all citizens were treated equally at the polling place. The act also allowed the federal government to much more closely voter registration and the effect of poll taxes in areas with a large African American population. The most prominent purpose of this act was to reiterate the intention of the fifteenth amendment and assure that no American was denied the right to vote based on their race.
 * 2) Audience: Upon its execution, the Voting Rights Act was primarily directed towards the states and cities in the deep South where racism was incredibly prevalent and the majority of African Americans, regardless of their education or economic standing, were being denied the right to vote due to some unforeseen barrier created by the politicians in the area. The act disallowed these politicians from finding loopholes in the law and ensured that they no longer had the capability to take away the fundamental rights of a large demographic of people. According to editors at Britannica, “The Voting Rights Act resulted in a marked decrease in the voter registration disparity between whites and blacks. In the mid-1960s, for example, the overall proportion of white to black registration in the South ranged from about 2 to 1 to 3 to 1 (and about 10 to 1 in Mississippi); by the late 1980s, racial variations in voter registration had largely disappeared” (“Voting Rights Act”). The Voting Rights Act successful forced politicians in the south to revise their polling system so that African Americans could no longer be denied the rights granted to them by the federal government. The states that were most affected by this act were the eleven former Confederate states, many of which, shortly after having this legislation passed, began to see African Americans in election positions.
 * 3) Cultural: In the 1960s, the Civil Rights movement was raging across the nation and the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 was one of the most powerful successes of the movement. Culturally, the Voting Rights Act affected the relationship between minority races and whites in the United States greatly and though social equality would not be instantaneous, equality under the law was a huge step in the right direction. The act did not just affect African American rights, however, it actually had profound impacts on minority races across the nation including Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans, which has led to immense shifts in racial relations across the country. One of the most important pieces of the law, “Section 5, which required certain states and municipalities to get federal permission before making changes in voting practices, is viewed by many as a savior of black and Latino voting rights,” (Wolf). The shift in the rights of racial minorities created a more balanced playing field, creating huge motions in the Civil Right Movement and cultural changes between races.
 * 4) Historical: Since its introduction in 1965, the Voting Rights Act has been extended and amended multiple times by the U.S. government to enfranchise more and more individuals and protect them from discrimination. One historical addition that was added promoted rights for citizens that are not fluent in English and forced polling places to have accommodations these citizens. Other additions include Section 5, which ensures that the voting requirements in each state remain the same unless approved by the federal government so that the discrimination cannot rise up once again in the future. According to the NAACP, “Originally, in 1965, legislators hoped that within five years the problems would be resolved and there would be no further need for these enforcement-related provisions: however, it proved necessary to extend these in 1970, and again in 1975 and 1982. They were set to expire in August 2007, but were extended for another 25 years with the July 2007 reauthorization vote” (“NAACP History: Voting Rights Act”) Historically, the Voting Rights Act has been supported, upheld and expanded in the last 50 years and has led to many Supreme Court rulings in favor of civil rights and the protection of minority races. For over 100 years, many African Americans were disenfranchised despite the fifteenth amendment and the Voting Rights Act was a major milestone that is considered to be one of the most powerful steps in the Civil Rights movement.
 * 5) Works Cited
 * 6) Britannica editors. "Voting Rights Act". //Encyclopædia Britannica.// Encyclopædia Britannica Online.Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 05 Jan. 2016
 * 7) NAACP. "NAACP History: Voting Rights Act." //NAACP History: Voting Rights Act.// N.p., 2009. Web. 05 Jan. 2016.
 * 8) "Voting Rights Act." //History.com.// A&E Television Networks, 2009. Web. 05 Jan. 2016.
 * 9) Wolf, Richard. "Voting Rights Act Section Affects Provision on States." //USA Today.// N.p., 2013. Web. 5 Jan. 2016.