Part A: Identification and Evaluation of Sources
Research Question: What was the primary factor that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965?
Many Americans were outraged by an event that occurred on March 7, 1965, when Alabama state troopers attacked peaceful voting rights protest participants who were marching from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital in Montgomery. These individuals were battered with nightsticks, tear gas and whips after they refused to turn back. Some of them were severely beaten and others ran for their lives. This event was seen on national television, and after this brutal incident, President Lyndon B. Johnson proposed extensive voting rights legislation.
The first source which will be investigated to examine
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Krotoszynski and published by the Yale Law Jounal in 1995. Krotoszynski earned two degrees from Emory University, and he also has a law degree from Duke University. After graduating, he clerked for the Honorable Frank M. Johnson, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. In addition to being a member of the faculty at the Alabama School of Law, Krotosynski has held appointments as a visiting scholar in residence at several universities. This scholarly essay reviews the social significance of the Selma march and how it focused national attention on the plight of Southern blacks and, subsequently, prompted Congress to pass one of the most sweeping laws in history: the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This Act eventaully led to a dramatic rise in black participation in democratic government, forever changing the shape of politics throughout the South and the …show more content…
Much of the debate on the origins of the Voting Rights Act center on the civil rights views of President Johnson. Historians have said that Johnson’s actions while both the Senate Majority Leader and as President were based on a desire to support bills that would be successful and oppose those that were unlikely to be passed. Johnson had grown beyond a Senate record of being sympathetic to the needs of the underprivileged into a president whose “desire to benefit others was ever the prime motive for his quest for power” (Garrow
Here, though, the focus is primarily on the Committee’s voter registration initiative starting in 1964. This documentary provides a more historical perspective, and offers glimpses into the strategies used in Selma, Alabama to obtain social change. It shows how those within the group questioned the effectiveness of the protests and the march, and
Recently you have received a letter from Martin Luther King Jr. entitled “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” In Dr. King’s letter he illustrates the motives and reasoning for the extremist action of the Civil Rights movement throughout the 1960’s. In the course of Dr. King’s letter to you, he uses rhetorical questioning and logistical reasoning, imagery and metaphors, and many other rhetorical devices to broaden your perspectives. I am writing this analysis in hopes you might reconsider the current stance you have taken up regarding the issues at hand.
During Johnson’s presidency, the federal government significantly extended its domestic responsibilities in attempt to transform the nation to what Johnson called the “Great Society,” in which poverty and racial intolerance ceased to exist. A previously unsurpassed amount of legislation was passed during this time; numerous laws were passed to protect the environment, keep consumers safe, reduce unfairness in education, improve housing in urban areas, provide more assistance to the elderly with health care, and other policies to improve welfare. Johnson called for a “War on Poverty,” and directed more funds to help the poor; government spending towards the poor increased from six billion in 1964 to twenty-four and a half billion dollars in 1968. Not only did Johnson improve the American economy and greatly reduce poverty, but he also advocated for racial equality; he managed to get Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, making segregation illegal in public accommodations/institutions. He also enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, prohibiting literacy tests in areas in which the amount of voters was under a certain number, which forced many southern states to allow more blacks to vote. As a result of his presidency, the poor and minorities enjoyed significant benefits from the more favorable legislations and more successful American legislation.
This book follows Johnsons political career, from a eager hard-working congressional secretary to the landslide victor of the 1964 presidential election. It discusses his "liberal" political views, It seems as though Johnson thought he could help the American people single-handedly and he seemed determined to do it. Johnson is He is praised for his vast legislative record and his stand on poverty and eventually, civil rights. He is criticized for his methods and
It had finally led to an end of the illegal barriers under the 15th Amendment and allowed African Americans to vote without any knowledge or character test. Johnson stated, “For years and years they had been tried and tried and tried and they had failed and failed and failed. And the time for failure is gone” (Johnson). The statistics showed a large increase of African Americans in each state in the South in 1966. By 1970, over a million African Americans had registered to vote by (Quoted in “Victory for Voters”). The Voting Rights Act not only allowed African Americans to vote, but it also opened up many new opportunities for them. After all, Lyndon Johnson had successfully achieved his main goal to get many supporters from the south and it changed the nation towards a positive direction after the
Few things have impacted the United States throughout its history like the fight for racial equality. It has caused divisions between the American people, and many name it as the root of the Civil War. This issue also sparked the Civil Rights Movement, leading to advancements towards true equality among all Americans. When speaking of racial inequality and America’s struggle against it, people forget some of the key turning points in it’s history. Some of the more obvious ones are the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in the North, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s march on Washington D.C. in 1963. However, people fail to recount a prominent legal matter that paved the way for further strides towards equality.
Despite the 14th and 15th constitutional amendments that guarantee citizenship and voting right regardless of race and religion, southern states, in practice, denied African Americans the right to vote by setting up literacy tests and charging a poll tax that was designed only to disqualify them as voters. In 1955, African Americans still had significantly less political power than their white counterparts. As a result, they were powerless to prevent the white from segregating all aspects of their lives and could not stop racial discrimination in public accommodations, education, and economic opportunities. Following the 1954 Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, it remained a hot issue in 1955. That year, however, it was the murder of the fourteen-year-old Emmett Louis Till that directed the nation’s attention to the racial discrimination in America.
In conclusion, despite this shortcoming, Selma of the North is a solid pathway into the very large bookshelf on civil rights activism in the North. The marches shifted public opinion about the Civil Rights movement. The images of police beating the protesters were shown all over the country by television networks and newspapers. The visuals of such brutality being carried out by the state of Alabama helped shift the image of the segregationist movement from one of a movement trying to preserve the social order of the South to a system of state-endorsed terrorism against non-whites. It offers what Jones correctly calls “another tile to the mosaic” of studies about the struggle for racial justice in the twentieth century.
Over 200,000 demonstrators participated in the March on Washington in the nation’s capital on August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to gain civil rights for African Americans. There was a wide diversity in those who participated, with a quarter of all the demonstrators being white (Ross). Even southern people came to contribute, which caused them to be harassed and threatened for coming to the march. The March on Washington became a very successful event for the rights of African Americans, and amended several peoples’ view-points towards the topic, even President John Kennedy’s.
...tates on a social level but politically too. This bill set the precedent for using a cloture to stop a filibuster in the Senate. Similar cloture votes in 1966 and 1968, with bills for equal voting rights and guaranteed equal housing respectively were used to stop Southern filibusters. The Civil Rights Act also proved that mass demonstration and peaceful protesting are heard in Washington D.C. Martin Luther King and the Leadership Conference started with nothing and achieved everything. From the segregated South those who fought for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 changed the course of American history and ridded the nation of inequality under the law.
One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation was written, African Americans were still fighting for equal rights in every day life. The first real success of this movement did not come until the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 which was followed by many boycotts and protests. The largest of these protests, the March on Washington, was held on August 28, 1963 “for jobs and freedom” (March on Washington 11). An incredible amount of preparation went into the event to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people attending from around the nation and to deal with any potential incidents.
Garrow, David J. Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. New York: New Haven and London Yale University Press. 1978
Garrow, David. Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Voting rights act of 1965. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1978. 135-147. Print.√
One of the most powerful counterculture movements in the sixties was the civil rights movement. In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act to end racial discrimination in employment, institutions like hospitals and schools, and privately owned public accommodations In 1965, congress returned suffrage to black southerners, by passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Foner 926). In the case of Loving v. Virginia (1967), the Supreme Court ruled that laws prohibiting interracial marriage were unconstitutional (Foner 951). Because of the civil rights movement in the sixties, minorities gained more rights than they had prior to the 1960s.
Massive protests against racial segregation and discrimination broke out in the southern United States that came to national attention during the middle of the 1950’s. This movement started in centuries-long attempts by African slaves to resist slavery. After the Civil War American slaves were given basic civil rights. However, even though these rights were guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment they were not federally enforced. The struggle these African-Americans faced to have their rights ...