Voting Rights Act
Voting has
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Voting has been a major issue for black Americans in this century, although the 15th Amendment, which was ratified in 1870, provides that neither the federal government nor any state shall deny the right to vote on account of race or color. It specifically authorized Congress to enforce its provisions by legislation. Nevertheless, especially in the South, white people denied blacks the right to vote, using everything from literacy tests to physical harm. In 1965, however, the Voting Rights Act was passed, and it suspended in certain areas the use of literacy tests and similar devices as prerequisites to registration and voting and provided for the appointment of federal examiners to register persons who met valid state voting requirements. This act was a departure from the acts of 1957-1960 and 1964 in that it provided for direct federal action to enable blacks to register and vote without reliance on often-protracted litigation required by previous legislation. Since this time, the act has been amended--in 1982--and the number of black people registered and voting, and even running for office, has risen significantly, showing gradual progress. Whites in the South have put many obstacles in the way of blacks' voting. One expert who interviewed Southern whites about their opposition to blacks' voting found that fear of the unknown was the basis of that opposition. He quoted a white former elected county official who opposed integration:
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d the 51 percent required by state law, a runoff was necessary. The white man won it by 656 votes and then lost to a white Republican in the general election. In 1982 in North Carolina, the scene was repeated. A black state legislator won a Congressional district Democratic primary with 44.5 percent of the vote. A state law identical to Mississippi's required a runoff, which a white man won with 53.5 percent of the vote over the black man's 46.5 percent.
Another way is to extend the term of the incumbent white official longer than the law permits. Thus, in counties or districts where the black registered voters outnumbered the white, there has been no election at the scheduled time. In Bullock County, Alabama, the county commissioners are elected to staggered terms. Primary elections to nominate candidates for two county commission seats were scheduled to be held on May 3, 1966. In 1965, legislators representing Bullock County, where the black voting age population is almost twice as large as the white voting age population, introduced local legislation to extend for two years the terms of the office of the Bullock County commissioners. The bill was passed by both houses and approved by the governor on August 20, 1965,
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Approximate Word count = 1366
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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