The Selma March And The Voting Rights Movement

The 15th amendment gave African American men the right to vote by saying that the” right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Sadly, African American men wouldn’t be able to exercise this right for almost a whole century. Using literacy tests, poll taxes, and other methods Southern states could prevent African Americans from voting. It took the passing of Voting Rights Act of 1965 before most African Americans in the South could vote. Woman went

Although Kennedy never signed the legislation he set the groundwork for the civil rights movement. He proposed the idea and did most of the foot work, even kennedy's death helped pass the bill. After Lyndon took office, he was determined to carry out kennedy’s ideas. It only took a couple of months after Kennedy died for the bill to be passed (http://loc.gov/). Johnson used the nation's sympathy to propel the campaign forward. The campaign was doing so well after his death that it went further than Kennedy had ever imagined, the bill would go on to set up the NAACP and ended the poll

The issues of racial discrimination and non equal voting rights were the problems that were causing a social loss to American communities. To stabilize the American communities, to protect the rights of American citizens specially the African-Americans, it was necessary to highlight the issues of racial discrimination and equal voting rights. Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the American politicians who take this matter very seriously and play his role to solve the issue of racial discrimination and equal voting right. The march of 1965 led by Dr. Martin Luther King was also one of his efforts to protect the equal voting rights for American citizens especially for

“I gave a little blood on that bridge in Selma, Alabama for the right to vote. I’m not going to stand by and let the Supreme Court take the right to vote away from us [African Americans]” –John Lewis. Within 100 years, African Americans overcame many obstacles such as paying poll taxes, passing multiple tests, and violence to be able to vote. They had to pay taxes, such as poll taxes. They also had to pass multiple tests, such as the Property and Literacy tests. Violence was also an obstacle African Americans had to face in order to vote.

The right to vote for African American became difficult during the time because the northern didn’t want to consider the blacks as equal to the society. As Frederick Douglass, has once stated “Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot.” African American fought their way to gain their right to vote is by coming together, free blacks and emancipated slaves, to create parades, petition drives to demand, and to organize their own “freedom ballots.” As a free African American, they except the same respect as the whites and nothing

“The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting.” In the 1880’s poll taxes and literacy requirements that afterward advocated African Americans to vote. Meanwhile Klan violence frightens from police and employers, blacks were still “protesting”about voting rights. As a result, there were over two dozen blacks serving in state congress across some

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 signed into law by President Lyndon B Johnson, this was to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented Africans-Americans from voting under the fifteenth amendment. The VRA gave African-Americans the right to vote and stating that people are not allowed to do anything to the people of different color or race while they are trying to vote, or forcing them to not vote. The fifteenth amendment was to prohibit states from denying a male citizen the right to vote based on race, or color; Still people who do not agree with this were trying to prevent African-Americans from voting.

The Selma to Montgomery March influenced Lyndon B. Johnson to pass the Voting Rights Act to gain the voting equality in the South.

In the race of the presidency of 1964, Johnson was chosen in a victory and used this to push for legislation he believed would help the American way of life, to gain more voting-rights laws. After the Civil War, which happened between the years 1861 through 1865, the 15th amendment, was changed in the 1870, which prevented states from denying a man citizen the right to vote based on race, color or any conditional origin, if he wasn't white. But years passed on, some discriminatory reasons were used to prohibit African Americans, especially from the South, from their right to vote. During the Civil rights movement of the years 1950s and 1960s, the voting rights activists in the South were put through forms of poor treatment and violence. One very significant event that happened on March 7th, 1965 when participants very peaceful in a voting rights march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital in Montgomery were met up by Alabama troopers who attacked them with weapons. Some of the people were beaten up and some ran from their lives. In that tragedy incident, Johnson called for inclusive voting rights legislation. In a speech of session of Congress in

In the 1869, congress passes the 15th amendment giving African American men the right to vote. Then in 1964 poll taxes where banned when it was adopted into the 24th amendment. Through all of this there were still many minorities left out of the loop, even though these laws and amendments where passed they truly weren’t put into place in individual states for a while. In 1965 many people marched and fought for the civil rights of many people. One of those famous marches was the march of Selma that included the famous MLK Jr. Later that year, President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the ‘Voting Rights Act’ into law. The Voting Rights Act consisted of permanently removing all barriers that detained many minorities from participating in elections and casting their votes by prohibiting racial/ethnic discrimination at all

The 1960s was a very hostile time for African Americans, especially in one particular state. In Mississippi, only 7% of the African American population was registered to vote, while other southern states had about 50%-60% of the black community participating in elections. Though preventing someone from voting based on their skin color was unconstitutional, many towns in Mississippi made it almost impossible for anyone of color to enter the voting booth. Many efforts to try to encourage voting in African Americans failed due to the fear of what would happen after the attempt. The possible consequences for those who pursued in the right to vote was having their name publicized in local newspapers, losing their job, or facing the threat of violence against

The act focuses on the views of millions Americans and is widely regarded as the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. This book describes the tale of African Americans still fighting heated battles over race, representation, and political power, with lawmakers devising new strategies to keep minorities out of the voting booth and with the Supreme Court declaring a key part of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional.

On May 3, 1963, 40 percent of the students at the all-black Parker High School in

The Civil Rights Movement began in order to bring equal rights and equal voting rights to black citizens of the US. This was accomplished through persistent demonstrations, one of these being the Selma-Montgomery March. This march, lead by Martin Luther King Jr., targeted at the disenfranchisement of negroes in Alabama due to the literacy tests. Tension from the governor and state troopers of Alabama led the state, and the whole nation, to be caught in the violent chaos caused by protests and riots by marchers. However, this did not prevent the March from Selma to Montgomery to accomplish its goals abolishing the literacy tests and allowing black citizens the right to vote.

Commencing in the late 19th century, state level governments approved segregation acts, identified as the Jim Crow laws, and assigned limitations on voting requirements that caused the African American population economically and diplomatically helpless (Davis, n.d.). The civil rights movement commenced, intensely and assertively, in the early 1940s when the societal composition of black America took an increasingly urban, popular appeal (Korstad & Lichtenstein, 1988). The 1950s and 1960s was well known for racial conflicts and civil rights protests. The civil rights movement in the United States during the late 1950s and 1960s was based on political and social strives to achieve