The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Voting Rights Act is considered one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history.
During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, voting rights activists in the South were subjected to various forms of mistreatment and violence. One event that outraged many Americans occurred on March 7, 1965, when peaceful participants in a Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights were met by Alabama state troopers who attacked them with nightsticks, tear gas and whips after they refused to turn back.
Some protesters were severely beaten and bloodied, and others ran for their lives. The incident was captured on national television.
In the wake of the shocking event, President Lyndon Johnson called for comprehensive voting rights legislation. In a speech to a joint session of Congress on March 15, 1965, the president outlined the devious ways in which election officials denied African American citizens the vote. He ended his speech with the powerful well-known refrain: We Shall Overcome . The Voting Rights Bill was passed in the U.S. Senate by à 77-19 vote on May 26, 1965. After debating the bill for more than a month, the U.S.House of Representatives passed the bill by à vote of 333-85 on July 9.
President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965, with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Mrs. Rosa Parks and other civil rights leaders present at the ceremony.