Sixty Years On, the Voting Rights Act Still Matters

Guest Column from the League of Women Voters of South Central Texas This year, in honor of the 250th anniversary of American independence, our League of Women Voters columns are devoted to the rights and freedoms at the heart of our nation’s founding. This month, as we mark the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, we turn to a right that makes all others possible: the right to vote.

OnAugust 6, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. Sixty years later, it remains one of the most important laws ever passed in this country — born out of a brutal, century-long effort to keep Black Americans and other groups away from the ballot box, even after the 15thAmendment guaranteed their right to vote.

The road to that signature ran through Selma, Alabama. On March 7, 1965 — a day history remembers as Bloody Sunday — peaceful marchers led by John Lewis were beaten by state troopers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge as they set out to march to Montgomery to demand voting rights. The violence, broadcast on national television, shocked people across the country — and finally forced Congress to act. Within five months, the Voting RightsAct was law.

TheAct was far-reaching. It banned literacy tests and other unfair barriers that had been used to block Black, Latino, and poorer citizens, including some white women, from the polls for generations. Texas, for example, had enacted a poll tax for voting in 1902 that remained in effect until the federal Act required states with a history of discrimination to obtain federal approval before changing any voting law — a requirement known as preclearance (pre-approval). It authorized federal examiners to register voters directly in areas where local officials had refused to do so. Even then, a 1966 Supreme Court ruling was necessary to prohibit the poll tax as a requirement for voting in state elections. The difference after 1966 was swift and remarkable — and it was real: in Mississippi, the share of eligible Black voters who were registered jumped from under 7 percent to nearly 60 percent within three years.

The Act has been reauthorized by Congress four times — in 1970, 1975, 1982, and 2006 — with broad bipartisan support each time. Yet the Supreme Court has significantly cut back its protections in a series of rulings over the past decade. In 2013, Shelby County v. Holder struck down the preclearance requirement. A 2021 ruling narrowed the tools available to challenge voting practices that made it harder for minority voters to cast a ballot. And this past April, in Louisiana v. Callais, the Court raised the bar for challenging congressional maps drawn along racial lines under Section 2 of the Act, the provision that prohibits discrimination in voting. Since those rulings, a number of states have changed their voting laws.

The right to vote is the foundation of everything else in a democracy. Sixty years on, that foundation is being tested. It needs our attention — and our voices.

The Voting Rights Act made possible something once denied to millions of Americans: a voice in their own government. Its protections extended beyond Black Americans to Latino, Asian American, Native American, and other minority communities — particularly after the 1975 reauthorization required bilingual ballots in areas with large non-English-speaking populations. That is when Texas first made election materials available in Spanish.

Today, more than 1,000 Black elected officials serve across the South — compared to fewer than 100 before the Act passed — and representation of other minority communities in elected office has grown significantly as well. That progress was not accidental. It was the direct result of protected access to the ballot. Protecting that access remains unfinished work.

The League of Women Voters of South Central Texas works year-round to help community members register to vote and understand the voting process. To check your voter registration status, visit vote411.org. To learn more about the League, visit www.lwvsouthcentraltx. org or call 361-772-3228.

Sources:

League of Women Voters of Texas. Timeline of Voting and Elections in Texas. lwvtexas.org Senters, K. (2020). The Texas Poll Tax. Texas Women’s Foundation. txwf.org The Voting Rights Act: Historical Development and Policy Background. Congressional Research Service. congress.gov/crs-product/ R47520 The League of Women Voters of South Central Texas is a nonpartisan, volunteer-led organization. It does not support or oppose candidates or political parties at any level of government.