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Overview
Then President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into-law in 1965, he explained that "[t]his act flows from a clear and simple wrong.... Millions of Americans are denied the vote because of their color. This law will ensure them the right to vote. The wrong is one which no American, in his heart, can justify."Now, more than forty years after the passage of this landmark legislation, The Voting Rights Act: Securing the Ballot, edited by Richard M. Valelly, chronicles the impact of this watershed event through the dynamic pairing of essays and primary source documents that defines CQ Press's Landmark Events in U.S. History series. The fifth volume in this award-winning collection explores these key topics: the evolution of voting rights in the United States before and after the Civil War, the disenfranchisement of African Americans after Reconstruction and the role of the states, political parties, the Supreme Court, and other institutions in that process, the efforts by civil rights and community groups, black churches, national leaders, the courts, and other organizations to restore voting rights for African Americans, the campaign for the Voting Rights Act-its development, passage, and implementation, the extensions of the act to include nonsouthern states, election rule preclearance requirements, minority officeholding, and bilingual voting assistance, the effects of the act on nonblack minorities, the place of the act in U.S. politics and the debate over its continued necessity.
Leading political, legal, and history scholars have written the insightful chapters, which are supported by more than forty related documents from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. These primary sources add a "you are there" immediacy and include constitutional amendments; Supreme Court cases; speeches by presidents, members of Congress, and civil rights leaders; personal letters; memoirs; congressional and civil rights commission testimony; and Department of Justice findings. Each document is introduced by an explanatory headnote that provides valuable context.
As with all volumes in the Landmark Events in U.S. History series, The Voting Rights Act presents a thorough and balanced treatment of a major event, including its antecedents and its continued impact on U.S. politics today. This uniquely engaging approach brings to life the historical significance of the Voting Rights Act for a wide range of readers and researchers.