Voting+RIghts+Act+1965

Civil Rights


 * President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting rights act of 1965 on August 6, 1965. The act was to allow anyone of any color/race to vote without a poll tax and literacy test.


 * The Voting Rights Act of 1965 enforces the 15th Amendment.


 * The act was signed as a law 95 years after the amendment was ratified. During those years, African Americans in the south had to do many things to be able to vote. Some of those things were poll taxes and literacy tests.


 * A poll tax is a fee that people had to pay in order to vote.


 * The Literacy test was a big test of questions that tested your knowledge and ability of literacy and the test was very complicated and not a lot of people passed it.


 * When African Americans would go to vote, they were harassed, intimidated, and also got into physical fights. With that happening to them, it made African Americans not want to vote.


 * When President Johnson signed the act into law, he had removed the poll tax due to the 24th Amendment. Also anyone of any race would be allowed to vote.[[image:story.jpg align="right"]]
 * The law had a big impact on the amount of new registered black voters. The end of 1965 had registered 250,000 new African American voters registered to vote. Also by the end of 1966, 4 out of 13 southern states had less than 50% African Americans registered to vote.
 *  Sometimes with the literacy test, the people that approved and denied people to vote were kkk members and would deny African Americans to vote.