Voting Rights Act
A Milestone Documents E-text
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Abstract

Voting rights have been part of the movement for racial equality since the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) outlawed restrictions to voting based on race. The amendment's authors viewed the right to vote as fundamental because it allows people to influence the political system. But by the early years of the twentieth century most southern states used such devices as literacy tests and the grandfather clause to restrict the ability of Blacks to vote. Attempts to secure voting rights for African Americans, including the civil rights laws of 1957, 1960, and 1964, generally required victims to sue election officials in court. This process required a lot of time and money and could be dangerous, because it publicly identified the complaining victims, exposing them to violent reprisals.

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