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Voting Rights Act Of 1965: A Comparative Analysis

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In order to ensure that all racial/ethnic minority groups in the United States have the equal rights as their majority counterpart, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and the Immigration and Naturalization Amendments (INA) in 1965. Both the Voting Rights Act and the Immigration and Naturalization Amendments were of civil rights origins: they were enacted in the midst of the civil rights movement. And each of them served a function in a reaction to overtly racist legal practices that marginalized communities of color for generations. On one hand, The Voting Rights Act of 1965 reflects Congress’ intention to rid of the racial discrimination in voting such as changes in elections. On the other hand, the Immigration and Naturalization Amendments shows for Congress’ intention to remove all formal racial restrictions from immigration law by changing immigration policy. In other words, Congress sought to alter the United States’ long engagement with racism by enacting these two pieces of legislation in 1965 (Hernandez, 2015: 168-173; Shaw et. al., 2015). My thesis is that by allowing these two pieces of legislation to become laws, Congress has succesfully extended the same rights to other non-white minority groups in the United States. …show more content…

In other words, the Voting Rights Act was passed to make sure that every American citizen, regardless of their race/ethnicity, has an equal opportunity to raise their opinions and vote for their

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Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 creates a coverage formula for determining which states and political subdivisions will be subject to additional scrutiny. The formula is based on the previous use of racially discriminatory practices and low voter registration or turnout. Section 5 of the Voting Rights act of 1965 holds that no jurisdiction that qualifies under the coverage formula can implement any changes in voting procedures until the changes are approved by the U.S. Justice Department or a federal court. Under Section 5 all states must obtain federal permission before enacting any law related to voting. (Con Law Textbook, pg. 725)

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It confirms how white supremacist discrimination caused Congress to fail by conveying the opinion that Black Americans are less worthy of participation in national governance than White Americans. This reveals the strong white supremacist ideals that were present in the South and made it challenging to establish laws intended to grant African Americans equal rights. White supremacists resisted Congress' attempts to guarantee equal rights for Black Americans, believing that it threatened their way of life. Congress' attempts to provide equal rights for Black Americans who had been emancipated were unsuccessful due to this discrimination and hostility. Equally, white supremacist discrimination is also represented in document

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The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was created, by Lyndon B. Johnson, to further enforce the 15th Amendment of the United States. The purpose of the act was to ensure democracy within the United States by giving everyone an equal ability to practice their rights. Throughout the history of the United States, African Americans have been denied of their basic freedoms as citizens. The Voting Rights Act made it harder for states to further deny African-Americans, and other

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African American men faced the hurdles of literacy tests and poll taxes, which, although they possessed the legal right to vote, served as significant obstacles, greatly impeding their ability to participate in the electoral process. Document 5 -. Portions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 state that, “No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.” This act removed the power of the states to deny voting rights to their citizens based on race, representing a significant milestone in the march toward equality. States made efforts to maintain segregation by unfairly arresting individuals solely based on their race.

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To accomplish social equality and justice has been a long controversial issue in U.S. history. Voting Rights Act of 1965 should be understood as a tremendous accomplishment today because it not only represent a symbol of the triumph of fighting social injustice, but also open the first gate for African American and minority to strive for more political power in order to create a “great society.”

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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

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Americans all around the nation were stunned by the executing of social liberties laborers and the ruthlessness they saw on their TVs. Freedom summer raised the cognizance of a large number of individuals to the predicament of African-Americans and the requirement for change. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed Congress to some extent in light of the fact that administrators ' constituents had been instructed about these issues amid Freedom

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This was the act that helped enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution. Before the Voter Rights Act African Americans, especially those living in the deep south, faced plenty of difficulties to voting which can include "poll taxes, literacy tests, and other bureaucratic restrictions to deny them the right to vote. " They were also faced with other non- legal issues such as harassment and violence when they attempted to vote. Because of everything that was going on at this time, there were few to none African American voters as well as any national or local political power. One event that specifically highlighted the attention of voting matters was the mass murder of voting rights activist in Mississippi, and the attack of non-violent marchers in Alabama.

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However, until today, African Americans still couldn’t get their real voting rights. This act doesn’t totally infer this situation, no matter how industrious blacks demand their completed fundamental rights. Except African American, within the United States, many minorities have struggled for their rights for many years. It is necessary for a government to protect all citizens’ rights, including the minorities. If the government couldn’t do that, as a citizen, we should speak out our perspectives by participating in the voting

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The act was passed to give African Americans protection when voting because before, when they trying to vote people would kill them. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed because it abolished literacy tests and poll taxes designed to disenfranchise African American

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Race has been a major concern in America for centuries. These cases occur between the whites and the other minority groups. The pioneer groups in this act are the whites who tend to view the other minority groups as people who should not belong in America. In some places the cases are very severe and some of the social amenities have been forced to have a division between those for the minorities and those for the majority groups. “This discrimination has led to the many groups to rise upon and fight against the issue” (Eddie S Glaude 51).

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