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Voting Rights Act: Securing The Ballot Essay

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Recommended: Conclusion for the voting rights act of 1965

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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