Voting Rights Act at 60: Civil Rights Activists Sound Alarm on Threats to Democracy

Strategic Insights -

Civil rights lawyers and scholars warn that voting rights are again in danger, despite the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. The law, signed into effect by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 6, 1965, has helped increase the number of Black voters and led to the election of record numbers of Black leaders. However, the Trump administration and some Republican-led state legislatures are working to change voting rights protections, threatening the promises of the act and the American system itself.

Key Takeaways:

  • The Voting Rights Act has helped increase the number of Black voters and led to the election of record numbers of Black leaders, including U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, a Democratic congressional leader, and U.S. Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina.
  • Voting rights advocates, including the National Urban League and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, are pressing Congress to support federal voting rights legislation named after the late civil rights icon U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia.
  • The law has mostly bipartisan congressional support, including when it was reauthorized in 2006, but recent voting rights legislation has stalled in Congress along party lines.
  • Civil rights leaders are also concerned about other efforts to dilute the law and restrict access to the polls in some states, including proposals to require proof of citizenship in person for federal elections.
  • Several states proposed more restrictive laws soon after the U.S. Supreme Court Shelby v. Holder ruling in 2013 eliminated a provision of the Voting Rights Act that required jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to get federal approval before making election changes.
  • Advocates believe the backlash is a response, at least in part, to increasing Black political power and the 2008 election of Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president.

Statistics:

  • In 2025, a record number of Black women served in state legislatures, according to a recent report by Higher Heights and the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
  • The Voting Rights Act has helped protect against discriminatory laws, including some that required Black voters to pass literacy tests or pay poll taxes to vote.
  • The act has been reauthorized several times, including in 1970, 1975, 1982, and 2006.

Sources:

  • "Justice is not yet done: The discontinued Yes we can: American voters and Citizens enjoyed reaching on the behalf American rights fallen legacy of met legacy social - act." Doyle McManus, LA Times. March 31 2000.
  • "HOW BLACK VOTERS DEFY MOBBIN AGAINST THEIR WILL." Atlanta constitution; 1930.