The Voting Rights Act turns 60 — but its promise is still under threat

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 6 of that year, effectively prohibited racial discrimination in voting and required federal oversight to ensure its implementation. But the promise of the now seminal Voting Rights Act is at risk as Americans mark this milestone anniversary.

The 19th
Sixty years ago this week, a landmark piece of voting rights legislation was signed into law — a policy that has aimed to course-correct America’s wobbled experiment of representative democracy.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 6 of that year, effectively prohibited racial discrimination in voting and required federal oversight to ensure its implementation.

Before then, Americans were routinely denied access to the ballot box based on the color of their skin, despite such practices being prohibited for nearly a century. But people in power still threatened Black and Brown residents — including women of color who had been excluded from the promise of The 19th Amendment in 1920 — with poll taxes, literacy tests and violence.

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