Today in History
What went down and why you should care.
aug 06 Learn More Voting Rights Act Signed
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, which forbids racial discrimination in voting, on this day in 1965. Racist election officials had all sorts of shady ways of preventing African Americans from voting back in the day, like telling potential voters that they had gotten the date or polling place wrong, had filled out the application incorrectly, or needed to recite the entire Constitution before voting. Say what? The Voting Rights Act didn't stamp out these underhanded practices entirely, but it did significantly improve voter turnout and gave African Americans legal grounds on which to confront crooked election judges.
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