How Did Jim Crow Laws Affect African Americans

Significant amounts of people today often do not comprehend how recently African-Americans truly gained the right to vote. About fifty-some years ago, less than one generation, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act; a landmark piece of federal legislation. The Voting Rights Act help African-Americans across the nation to overcome the legal barriers, such as the racially discriminatory Jim Crow Laws, that often prevented them from exercising their right to vote—which is guaranteed under the fifteen amendment, in national, state, and local elections. More specially, from the ratification of the fifteen amendment to the passage and signing of the Voting Rights Act, African-Americans, as well as other minority groups, endure countless

However, Dr. King believed that filing lawsuits was a very inefficient way to help decrease the obstacles that African-Americans faced during the voting process, due to racial prejudice and bigotry—in order to increase the percentage of African-Americans that came out to vote. Dr. King stated that his experience has “been that it takes years to undo in the courts what segregationists do in a day in the legislative halls of the South.” Many states, such as Alabama and Mississippi, in the deep were largely unaffected by SCLC actions in the last 1950s and early 1960s. The number of African-Americans registered was tremendously low; therefore, the voter turnout was low. For example, in the 1960 Presidential election only 29.4 percent of all African-Americans were registered to vote (Beyerlein & Andrews). Likewise, 19.3 percent of eligible African-Americans were registered in Alabama and more shockingly less than half a percent of African-American voters were registered in Selma, Alabama. Dr. King believed the only way to put force the national government to truly enforce the law was through direct-action campaigns. Dr. King went down to the worst of the worst Selma, Alabama. SCLC, along with other African-American activist, planned a march. In March of 1965, led by Dr. King, protestors Marched from Selma to the state capital, Montgomery. During their March they were meet with deadly force by the local officials, police officers, and racist white power groups because of all the blood that was shed, during this march, many historians as well as other people, reference to this day as “Bloody Sunday” (Selma to Montgomery March). Despite the resist from racist white individuals, the marchers persevered and reach the