Before enacting the Voting Rights Act of 1965, African Americans went through numerous injustices under the American regimes' leadership in the United States. Nevertheless, this Act was meant to restore justice and ensure that African Americans receive fair treatment, particularly by participating in voting. The Voting Rights Act reassured African Americans of their voting rights and eliminated the literacy tests that voting officials forced every black American potential voter to go through;
There are series of events that contributed to the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; there were numerous demonstrations held in the previous years accompanied by the violence that erupted in 1964, raising the attention of the Voting Rights issue Act (Fresh, 2018). Some of the incidences that contributed to the 1964 violence included the murder of a voting-rights activist in the region of Mississippi. Another action that sparkled heated emotions prompting the 1964 violence was the attack staged by United States police departments on peaceful Marchers in the Selma region. Consequently, Johnson Lyndon was forced to establish a congress to initiate the Voting Rights Act, passed into constitutional law in 1965.
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According to Mazzone & Rushin (2017), important participants who contributed to establishing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 included the marchers, African Americans, the then-president Johnson Lyndon, and the Congress. The president was forced to call together Congress due to the rising public revulsion of the violence. Due to his political matters’ expertise, he influenced Congress to pass the voting rights bill into an Act on August 5, 1965 (Harada, 2012). After passing the bill into an Act, the president signed legislation the following day to outlaw literacy tests. Another immediate action that followed the bill's passage into an Act is the selection of Federal examiners tasked with ensuring all qualified citizens are equally allowed to vote. According to Fresh (2018), the establishment of voting regulations on African Americans had been passed into an Act by the 24th amendment of 1964, which was scrapped for the 1965 Act. The key participants who contributed to actions promoting the passage of the Act were different in that the violence that erupted in 1964 was supported by African Americans and some percentage of the white population.
The actions taken by president Johnson Lyndon concerning the passage of the Rights Act had both short-term and long-term impacts on American society. For example, the legislation that President Johnson Lyndon signed the following day after Congress passed the bill into an Act restricted election official from forcibly administering literacy tests to African American voters (Mazzone & Rushin, 2017). In the next coming elections, the Rights Act's passage had a significant influence on the American population; most of the black Americans were allowed to take part in voting. The election officials were stripped of the powers to administer literacy tests to African Americans who were willing to vote. Another immediate consequence of the Act was eliminating constitutionalized poll taxes that African Americans were required to pay before exercising their rights to vote.
The American society was made to accept African Americans as equal citizens. Additionally, one long-term effect that resulted from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was that colored Americans were allowed to become citizens of the United States (Harada, 2012). The nationwide criminalization of poll taxes and literacy tests conducted on African Americans showed that African Americans had equal rights just like any other American.
In conclusion, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was one of the biggest breakthroughs for African Americans' fight for justice. The passing of the Act ensured that African American voters were not discriminated against or required to undergo the literacy tests before voting, which is their right. Additionally, the previous regulations' scrapping indicated the end of an era, one that lacked justice as African Americans were expected to contribute poll tax to be allowed to vote. The 1965 Act was a historical decision that restored justice to African Americans by allowing them to participate in voting and limiting the qualifications that disqualified most voters.
References
Fresh, A. (2018). The Effect of the Voting Rights Act on Enfranchisement: Evidence from North Carolina. The Journal of Politics , 80 (2), 713-718.
Harada, M. (2012). The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Strategic Policy Making in the South. State Politics & Policy Quarterly , 12 (4), 456–482. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532440012451979
Mazzone, J., & Rushin, S. (2017). From Selma to Ferguson: The Voting Rights Act as a Blueprint for Police Reform. Calif. L. Rev. , 105 , 263.
