What was the Voting Rights Act of 1965?
Answer
A law protecting voting rights
Explanation
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a landmark federal law protecting the right to vote for all American citizens regardless of race, ending the literacy tests, poll taxes, and other devices that southern states had used to disenfranchise Black voters since the end of Reconstruction. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it on August 6, 1965, in the Capitol Rotunda with Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders standing behind him. The act came in direct response to the violent suppression of peaceful voting rights demonstrators in Selma, Alabama.
On Sunday, March 7, 1965, about 600 marchers led by John Lewis and Hosea Williams set out to walk from Selma to Montgomery to protest the murder of voting rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson. As they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Alabama state troopers and local possemen attacked them with clubs, tear gas, and whips, beating Lewis nearly to death. National television broadcast the violence on Bloody Sunday, and the public outcry was overwhelming.
President Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress on March 15, 1965 and famously declared that we shall overcome, urging Congress to pass strong voting rights legislation. The bill moved quickly. The Senate passed it 77 to 19 on May 26, 1965, and the House passed it 333 to 85 on July 9.
Section 2 banned voting practices that discriminated based on race or color. Section 4 created a coverage formula that identified state and local jurisdictions with histories of discrimination. Section 5 required those covered jurisdictions, including most of the Deep South, to obtain preclearance from the Justice Department or a federal court before changing any voting law. Section 6 authorized the attorney general to send federal examiners to register voters in covered jurisdictions, and Section 8 allowed federal observers to monitor elections.
The act had a dramatic effect. Black voter registration in Mississippi rose from about 6.7 percent in 1964 to nearly 60 percent by 1968. The number of Black elected officials in the South climbed from fewer than 100 in 1965 to more than 5,700 by 1990. Congress reauthorized the act in 1970, 1975, 1982, and 2006.
The Supreme Court struck down the Section 4 coverage formula in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, weakening enforcement, though Section 2 remains active.
Why this matters for your test
USCIS asks about the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because it remade American democracy by securing the right to vote for millions of citizens previously locked out of the political process. Understanding the act helps applicants see why voting rules and access still draw intense political debate today.
Source: USCIS 128 Civics Questions (2025)
