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Voting Rights Act: Securing The Ballot Essay

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My topic is on the morality of implementing a literacy test for voters. The topic question is, “should people in the U.S. pass a scientific literacy test before being able to vote?” Voters are the population at center of this topic and deserve attention, because they are the building blocks of the U.S. Republic with great influence on government officials at all levels. This scientific literacy test will not be a series of questions and will not be used to quantify the test taker’s knowledge on scientific subjects, but rather will be two questions: 1. Are you aware of what the goal of science is? (Yes or No) 2. Do you have an appreciation for how scientific knowledge, understanding and its application benefit humanity? (Yes or No) I will use …show more content…

The establishing of voting rights for all Americans has been a painfully slow and grueling task. In the book, The Voting Rights Act: Securing the Ballot by Richard M. Valelly, the history of African American voting rights is described in great detail. First, Valelly walks through the building of African American voting rights in the 19th century and then covers the following years of black disenfranchisement. Then a turning point in American democracy occurs, The Voting Rights Act of 1965 signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. The creation, extensions, shortcoming, and impact of this legislation are fleshed out next. I will also explain the history of black enfranchisement in this …show more content…

The language of the law in a handful of states even specifically mentioned that a qualification to vote was to be white and a land owner. It wasn’t until the Emancipation Proclamation that black men had hopes of having the same rights as their white counterparts and it was not until after the war where black suffrage laws were passed. Post-civil war America took leaps and bounds forward for African Americans. Three important documents for the recently freed slaves were the 13th (1865), 14th (1868), and 15th amendment (1870). These were the first amendments added to the U.S. constitution in 60 years and were known as the Civil War Amendments (Landmark). These amendments were created to secure equality for the freed slaves. The 13th amendment freed the slaves and the 14th gave them equal protection under the law. The 15th Amendment, Section 1, reads as, “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.” (U.S. Const. Amend.

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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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The 15th Amendment (Amendment XV), which gave African-American men the right to vote, was inserted into the U.S. Constitution on March 30, 1870. Passed by Congress the year before, the amendment says, “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.” Although the amendment was passed in the late 1870s, many racist practices were used to oppose African-Americans from voting, especially in the Southern States like Georgia and Alabama. After many years of racism, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to overthrow legal barricades at the state and local levels that deny African-Americans their right to vote. In the

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The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of civil rights legislation that was enacted to protect the voting rights of African Americans and other minority groups. The law was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 6, 1965, and has been credited with increasing the political power and representation of minority groups in the United States. This essay will explore the background, significance, and impact of the Voting Rights Act, as well as the current challenges and controversies surrounding the law. Prior to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, voting rights were often denied to African Americans and other minority groups through a variety of discriminatory practices, including literacy tests, poll taxes, and other measures.

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Even though the government adopted the Voting Rights Act in 1965, African Americans’ suffrages were still restricted because of southern states’ obstructions. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was important for blacks to participate in political elections, but before this act was passed, there were several events led to its proposal. The government gave African Americans’ the right to vote by passing the 15th Amendment, but in the Southern States, blacks’ suffrages were limited by grandfather clauses, “poll taxes, literacy tests, and other bureaucratic restrictions” (ourdocuments.gov). As times went on, most African Americans couldn’t register their votes.

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The right to vote is a crucial means of recognizing equality in society, a person's equality before the law, and is a way of protecting all of one's other rights. If a person is not allowed to vote, he or she does not have the same chances to make changes to society, or to improve laws and policies affecting their lives, on an equal basis with others in society. The same is true if one is not allowed to be elected. This relegates the disenfranchised person to a position of subjugation to the rest of society. The protection of other rights falls away when persons are deprived of the right to vote.

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