Celebrating the Voting Rights Act: What its Legacy Teaches Us About the Ongoing Fight for the Ballot
By Chloe Park, Strategic Communications Intern, Advancing Justice — AAJC
August 6th marks the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Yet, for millions of Americans — especially communities of color — the ballot box still feels far from reach.
When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law after decades of protest, activism, and advocacy by the American people, it marked a pivotal moment in U.S. history. After a long and painful legacy of voter suppression through literacy tests and poll taxes, the Voting Rights Act indicated the beginning of electoral representation by outlawing racial discrimination in voting. Over the decades, the law has been used to protect Asian American voting rights through enforcement of its language access and voter assistance provisions.
But more recently, voting rights have been eroded through court rulings and state-level restrictions. As advocates push for the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a revitalized version of the Voting Rights Act, we’re reminded that the fight for equal access to the ballot didn’t end 60 years ago — it’s still being fought today.
Following the Civil War, Congress ratified the 15th Amendment in 1870, granting African Americans the right to vote by prohibiting both state and federal governments from denying voting rights on the basis of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” On paper, the law aimed to give Black communities equal opportunities to participate in the democratic process — and while it initially led to increased political participation and representation, local and state governments soon found ways to uphold white supremacy through tactics like literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and poll taxes that disenfranchised Black voters for nearly a century.
At the same time, Asian American communities faced their own barriers to voting, often rooted in citizenship laws and language access restrictions. Asian immigrants were denied naturalization until the mid-20th century, which barred them from the ballot box. Only after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which affirmed the unlawfulness of excluding Asian immigrants from becoming citizens in the United States, did many become eligible for naturalization and, by extension, the right to vote. Later, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 abolished immigration quotas that discriminated against Asians and those from other non-Western countries. Even so, language barriers continued to limit access to the polls for many voters.
It was not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed that voters of color gained the strongest modern protections to challenge discriminatory barriers to the ballot box. It outlawed mechanisms used to disenfranchise Black and brown voters by allowing them to sue to undo prejudiced laws, policies, and practices that infringed on the right to vote. The Act also required areas with a history of discriminatory voting practices to gain approval from the Department of Justice or a federal court before changing voting rules, a process called preclearance. In 1975, the Act was amended to further expand protections by requiring certain jurisdictions with large populations of citizens who aren’t proficient in English to provide language assistance to voters.
The Voting Rights Act 1965 was a key step to protecting historically marginalized communities from attacks that attempted to restrict their voting power. While Asian Americans only made up 0.5% of the population in the early 1960s, our communities benefited from the successful advocacy of Black, Native American and Latino civil rights leaders. After its passage, the disparity in registration rates between white and Black voters plummeted from around 30% in the early 1960s to 8% ten years later. Following the 1992 amendments to the Voting Rights Act that expanded bilingual election requirements, the number of Asian Americans registered to vote increased by 58% from 1996 to 2006. Now, Asian Americans make up 8% of the American population and are the fastest growing electorate.
If there is one lesson from the history of the 15th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to always keep in mind, it is that opponents of voting rights will continue to find new ways to undermine them. The past two decades have seen the Supreme Court gut and or weaken key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, reducing its ability to protect voters in vulnerable communities. Most notable is Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the formula used to determine which jurisdictions were subject to preclearance is unconstitutional.
The removal of this formula has opened the floodgates for jurisdictions to pass new voting restrictions with little to no federal intervention. On the same day as the Shelby County v. Holder decision, Texas’s then-Attorney General Greg Abbott announced that he would implement a law that restricted the forms of accepted voter IDs, which was eventually struck down after years of battle in court. Two months later, North Carolina’s then-Governor Patrick McCrory signed the “monster voter suppression law,” which reduced early voting and eliminated same-day registration, among other efforts to restrict voting access. The law was ultimately struck down by the courts in 2016.
The current administration has accelerated efforts to undermine the protections that the Voting Rights Act guarantees.
As the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act approaches, it is important to not only celebrate its legacy, but also to show support for efforts to safeguard the law amid ongoing attacks. Passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would mark a crucial victory by revitalizing the strength of the Voting Rights Act. Among key provisions, it would restore preclearance by modernizing the formula used to determine jurisdictions with a history of discrimination. It would also create a new practice-based preclearance mechanism that would address the needs of emerging communities on the verge of effectively exercising political power like the Asian American community. This bill was reintroduced in the House earlier this year prior to the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and in the Senate on July 29, just days before today’s anniversary.
The Voting Rights Act’s legacy reminds us that the fight for equal access to the ballot box is far from over. This August 6th, we urge you to stand with voters and advocates nationwide by showing support for legislation like the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Join us in spreading awareness about the bill. You can contact your elected officials to encourage them to support the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Together, we can strengthen voting rights for all Americans.
