What Difference Did the Voting Rights Act Make?

In May 1966, in Birmingham, Alabama, where some of the most violent actions against civil rights protesters had taken place, Willie Bolden voted for the first time. “It made me think I was sort of somebody,” the eighty-one-year-old grandson of slaves said. Ardies Mauldin, the first African American voter registered in Selma, Alabama, under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), reflected that “people . . . look more like citizens now.” Fannie Lou Hamer reported that when blacks had no political voice, she got “hate stares” from whites. “Those same people now call me Mrs. Hamer.” A sense of personal respect and dignity was just one of the transformations generated by African Americans’ struggle for the most basic right of citizenship.

That effort did not end with the passage of the VRA. As NAACP leader Roy Wilkins warned, “Legislation is not self-implementing.” The law suspended the literacy tests that had been used to disqualify blacks but not whites, and it brought electoral operations in most southern states under federal control. The Justice Department had to approve in advance any changes in state procedures that could disadvantage black voters, and the attorney general was empowered to send federal agents to observe registration and election processes and even to register voters in areas of continued white resistance.

Civil rights activists organized more than two hundred voter registration drives between 1966 and 1968, resulting in dramatic increases in the numbers of blacks registered. Across the South, the proportion of African Americans on voter rolls jumped from 43 percent in 1964 to 62 percent in 1968. In Mississippi during that time, the total leaped from just 6.7 percent to 68 percent.

Black voting had an immediate effect on political representation. In the first ten years of the VRA, the number of black elected officials in the South grew from 72 to 1,588; while no African American sat in a southern state legislature in 1965, 95 did in 1975. Just seven years after whites bludgeoned civil rights activists during the voting rights campaign in Selma, Alabama, black candidates won half the seats on the city’s council. Barbara Jordan of Texas and Andrew Young of Georgia won election to the House of Representatives in 1972, becoming the first African Americans from the South to sit in Congress since Reconstruction. In 1973, Atlanta, Georgia, elected its first black mayor, Maynard Jackson. Black electoral success was not limited to the South. Nationwide the number of black elected officials rose from around 1,500 in 1965 to more than 10,000 on the fiftieth anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. Black representation in Congress inched up to 45 out of 535 voting members.

Electoral success translated into tangible benefits. Fred Reese, who was elected to the Selma city council, said in 1975, “We’ve got black policemen, black secretaries, and we can use the public restrooms. The word ‘nigger’ is almost out of existence.” In Atlanta, Maynard Jackson appointed a black police chief and increased African Americans’ share of city jobs from 42 to 51 percent. Black local officials also awarded more contracts to minority businesses. When African Americans took office, their constituents saw improvements in public facilities, police protection, roads, trash collection, and other basic services. Referring to Unita Blackwell’s accomplishments as mayor of Mayersville, Mississippi, one resident noted, “She brought in the water tower. Mostly it was the pumps then. . . . Sewage, too.” Another resident pointed to “old folks’ houses and paved streets.” Even when they were heavily outnumbered by whites, black officials could at least introduce issues of concern that whites had ignored, and they gained access to information about behind-the-scenes government. An African American member of a city council in Florida pointed out that “no matter what happened [my white colleagues] knew I was listening to everything that went on.”

In the twenty-first century, African Americans still struggled for full equality. The election of a black president was a milestone, but African Americans were still underrepresented among elected officials. Only three blacks have served as governor (one in the South), and just four have been elected to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction. The Supreme Court in 2013 limited the reach of the VRA, and more than a dozen states passed voter ID laws and other measures making voting more difficult, especially for the elderly and the poor. Georgia representative John Lewis, who was bloodied and sent to the hospital during the Selma voting rights drive, said in response to voter ID laws, “Our struggle is not a struggle that lasts one day . . . or one session of Congress. . . . Our struggle is the struggle of a lifetime.”

Questions for Analysis

Summarize the Argument: What kinds of psychological and material benefits does the author argue were derived from the VRA?

Analyze the Evidence: In what specific ways did the VRA change African Americans’ lives?

Consider the Context: How important was the VRA in contrast to other gains of the black freedom struggle?