The right to vote is widely recognized as one of the fundamental human rights. In a democratic state, it is essential for each individual to impact the country’s sociopolitical life through voting. While the right is accepted as fundamental, it is denied to a multitude of people around the globe. Thus, in the United States, African-Americans were consistently refused at polling place, despite the existence of the Fifteenth Amendment prohibiting discrimination in voting.
Till 1965, there was no document in federal legislation trying to overcome the enduring social barriers that prevented the African-American population from exercising the right. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, forbidding ethnic discrimination in voting, became a turning point in the country’s history. The act gave African-Americans an opportunity to defy the systematic oppression in this aspect, increasing voter turnout. The chapter depicts events leading to the signing of this vital act, propelling ideas previously adopted in the Fifteenth Amendment.
The population in question faced many challenges preventing them from voting in numerous southern states. Despite contributing equally to the country’s economy and social life, only a small percentage of adult African-Americans were registered as voters. This situation existed partially due to discriminatory voting practices and suppression. For instance, some African-Americans were asked to pass a literacy test at a polling place without which their ballot would not have been accepted.
Naturally, they failed as the practice was merely a ruse to justify the discrimination. In addition, some African-Americans had reservations about voting due to years of stigmatization and prejudice and did not view it as their civic duty. Some even were concerned with a possibility of vengeance from the Caucasian part of the population if they appear at a polling place. In this way, several phenomena contributed to low voter turnout among African-Americans, encompassing discriminatory voting practices, systematic oppression, personal reservations, and fear of retribution.
Selma, Alabama occupies a distinct place in the history of the Voting Rights Movement. Currently, the town embodies the fight against systematic oppression in regard to voting. In the middle of the last century, Selma and similar southern cities were the ones in the most acute need of social change. In Alabama’s state government, several prominent figures were proponents of segregation and ethnic discrimination, decelerating the progress that the Civil Rights Movement managed to make in the rest of the country. Notably, George Wallace, Alabama’s senator at the time, was at the head of discriminatory politics. Segregation was the state’s official policy accentuating the need for social activism.
Therefore, the presence of activists and social change organizations was not welcomed on the official level: the peaceful efforts of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) encouraging African-Americans to vote were met with police brutality. Law enforcement violence eventually became the catalyst in the Selma Voting Rights Movement. Police brutality resulted in Selma to Montgomery marches, a cornerstone event in the history of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
From the moment the non-violent actions of SNCC were met with police violence, the situation began to escalate further. The protest reached its peak when an African-American civil rights activist, Jimmie Lee Jackson, was murdered by an Alabama state trooper. The incident happened during nighttime demonstrations near Selma. The injustice of the young man’s fate moved leaders of the Voting Rights Movement.
Jackson’s death became the last drop in the systematic violations of African-Americans’ civil rights and provoked Selma to Montgomery marches, led by Martin Luther King. To obstruct the protest, the state’s governor, Wallace, alerted state troopers and highway patrol – from the beginning, the march was a dangerous enterprise. Due to the danger of law enforcement violence, some figures inside the Civil Rights Movement were against it, not without reason, declaring it to be potentially murderous. Nevertheless, the majority was in favor, and on Sunday, March 7, 1965, thousands of people departed from Selma to the state’s capital, Montgomery.
In some ways paralleling this year’s events, police brutality prompted social reaction and change. Despite the marches’ peaceful intentions, they were faced with violent resistance from Alabama state troopers and police. The marchers were brutally assaulted with tear-gas, cavalry, and brute force; many activists needed hospitalization. As the result, the events were given the name of “Bloody Sunday”. After the incident, the march was stalled for several weeks, as King refused to proceed till the event’s participants’ safety could be ensured. “Bloody Sunday” was extensively documented and provoked public uproar in the rest of the country.
Therefore, the president could not ignore the issue and responded to the events and the violence that Wallace condoned: a week later, Lyndon B. Johnson presented a voting rights legislation that would become the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Three weeks after the Bloody Sunday and following litigation, King led 25.000 marchers to Montgomery, where they arrived three days later, more or less in safety. Overall, the situation demonstrates that police brutality, particularly regarding ethnic minorities, has been a prevalent issue in society for a somewhat long time.
Although many contemporary citizens neglect their right to vote and are disillusioned with the concept, voting remains one of the primary instruments of democratic change, over which the African-American population and their allies fought vigorously. The march resulted in considerable changes in the voting process. The Voting Rights Act, signed approximately five months after Bloody Sunday, warranted African-Americans the right to vote, forbidding literacy tests and similar ploys used to prevent them from exercising this fundamental right.
Compared to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (interdicting discrimination based on ethnicity, sex, religion, et cetera), the act’s impact might appear less tangible and expansive. Yet, it warranted a whole population group the ability to partake in shaping their future by selecting their national representatives in the face of presidents. From a historical perspective, the act is merely a fragment of a larger movement, but it promotes an essential human right denied to different groups throughout history and still in some parts of the world.
The right to vote has significance beyond reflecting social justice and the state of equality. The right is a cornerstone of the democratic societal structure, as being able to drop a ballot in a box can be equalized to being viewed as a full-fledged member of a community, capable of participating in collective decision-making. Denying the right is representing a population group as second-rate citizens. Ensuring the right and not being curbed at a polling place potentially allowed the African-American population as well as other ethnic minorities to affirm their equality to the rest of the country’s citizens. The Voting Rights Act fulfilled this function, despite the fact that discrimination still lingers in many societal spheres.