The Voting Rights Act of 1965 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 - Essay Example The National Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed the would - be voters in the United States take literacy tests to qualify to register to vote, and it provided for to vote, and it provided for federal registration of voters in areas that had less than 50% of eligible minority voters registered. The Act also provided for Department of Justice oversight to registration, and the Department's approval for any change in voting law in districts that had used as a "device" to limit voting and in which less than 50% of the population was registered to vote in 1964. It was signed in 1965, and signed for a 25 year extension by George W. Bush on July, 2006. National Association for the Advancement of Colored people (NAACP) was founded in New York in 1909 for the purpose to improve the living condition of Black Americans at that time. Although their conditions improved enormously, many differences existed in the rights of United States citizens because of ethnic origin; The NAACP continued to seek a single class of citizenship for every American. W.E.B. Du Bois an American writer in 1895 argued that "blacks should accept their social status and work to improve their lives through economic means". The association also secured the elimination of the so- called "grandfather clause", a clause in the voting laws of certain Southern States that permitted only those people to vote whose grandfathers had voted. Because the grandfathers of blacks had been slaves so could not vote, this clause effectively denied enfranchisement to blacks. With the help of organized labour and by various minority groups, civic, and fraternal organizations, the NAACP went on to lead the efforts that resulted in the enactment of the Civil Rights of 1957 and 1964, the voting Rights Act of 1965, and Fair Housing Act of 1968. W.E. Bois says in his magazine, "to stand for the rights of men, irrespective of colour or race, for the highest ideals of American democracy, and for reasonable but earnest and persistent attempts to gain these rights and realize these ideals."* *The Crisis, a magazine founded in 1910 by the American writer and sociologist W.E. Du Bois In 1948 Gerald R. Ford was elected to the US House of Representatives. During his tenure he favored increasing the defense budget, and he usually voted for civil rights legislation. In 1965 he was elected minority leader of the House of Representatives. Among the practices that have been the objects of electoral reforms are actual or threatened physical violence; concealed pressures such as those exercised by some