A Timeline of the Voting Rights Act.
1867
1866 Civil Rights Act of 1866 grants citizenship, but not the right to vote, to all native-born Americans
1869
Congress passes the Fifteenth Amendment giving African American men the right to vote.
1896
Louisiana passes “grandfather clauses” to keep former slaves and their descendants from voting. As a result, registered black voters drops from 44.8%..
1940
Only 3% of eligible African Americans in the South are registered to vote.
Jim Crow laws like literacy tests and poll taxes were meant to keep African Americans from voting.
1964
Poll taxes are outlawed with the adoption of the 24th Amendment.
1965
More than 500 non-violent civil rights marchers are attacked by law enforcement officers while attempting to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to demand the need for African American voting rights.
1965
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act into law, permanently barring barriers to political participation by racial and ethnic minorities, prohibiting any election practice that denies the right to vote on account of race... (Video)
1965
By the end of 1965, 250,000 new black voters are registered, one third of them by federal examiners.
1970
President Richard Nixon signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act.
Nixon: “The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has opened participation in the political process.”
1972
Barbara Jordan of Houston and Andrew Young of Atlanta become the first African Americans elected to Congress from the South since Reconstruction. (Video)
1975
President Gerald Ford signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act.
1982
President Ronald Reagan signed a 25-year extension of the Voting Rights Act.
1990
Due, in part, to the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, the number of black elected officials in Georgia grows to 495 in 1990 from just three prior to the VRA.
2006
Congress extended Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act for an additional 25 years.
2010 to Present
Since 2010 alone, the Department of Justice has had 18 Section 5 objections to voting laws in Texas, South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana. (video)
2011
Restrictions to voting passed in South Carolina, Texas and Florida are found to disproportionately impact minority voters. (Video)
2011
Texas passed one of the nation’s most restrictive voter ID laws. Under the VRA, the state was required to submit the law to DOJ or... (more)
2011
South Carolina passed a restrictive voter ID law that would keep more than 180,000 African Americans from casting a ballot. (more)
2011
A record number of restrictions to voting were introduced in state legislatures nationwide, including photo ID requirements... (more)
2011
Florida passed a law that restricts voter registration and made cuts to early voting. The majority of African Americans in Florida... (more)
2011
Under the VRA, the DOJ blocked South Carolina’s voter ID law, saying it discriminates against minority voters... (more)
2013
2013 Shelby v Holder at the Supreme Court.
Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy are now responsible for gutting this most vital law.
The above with thanks to the ACLU, here: http://www.aclu.org/timeline-history-voting-rights-act
