The Voting Rights Act of 965 was signed by President Johnson with many civil rights leaders present like Martin Luther King Jr. It essentially allowed the federal government to enforce the fifteenth amendment, preventing discrimination at the polls. It also targeted states with a history of discrimination, requiring them to get pre-clearance with a federal committee before they could change any of their own laws. Ari Bermans Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America takes a deep look at how the voting rights act unfolded and how its quick challenge in the courts paved the way for polarization within the country. Berman also gives evidence for the importance of challenging and fighting over legislation in order to follow the constitution. He also takes a deep look at the counter-revolution from the white south who realigned from the Democratic Party to join the Republican Party and use the courts to overturn sections of the act. While the Voting Rights Act pushed for the first big rights movement, it opened the door for many more in the future. In the twenty-first century, we are faced with a number of other rights movements like LGBTQI rights, womens rights, and even more recently, immigrant rights. Robert O. Selfs, All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy since the 960s, takes a deeper look at modern movements and how these movements developed over the course of the USAs rights history. Self gives evidence for how these movements have reshaped party compositions, as well as the overall issue focus within politi
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The author focuses on how the public and political actors fought with words and images, through politics and the law, over what made women and men full citizens of the nation (Self, 3). 965 was proposed to be a year test of test on civil rights (Berman, 5), and it was exactly that. In August after numerous demonstrations throughout the last two years and after a violent protesting period, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 965. This was enacted to prevent discrimination in voting procedures such as literacy tests and poll taxes, finally enforcing the fifteenth amendment, 95 years later. This act saw a lot of divide between the two sides of white Americans and African Americans predominantly in the south. In Ari Bermans Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, we are given a deeper insight into the reason for this divide-turned polarization. One particular section of the act that caused further outrage among some people was section 5 which identified states with a history of discrimination and required them to get preclearance from a federal body to make any changes to their voting procedure. While this was seen as very controversial, for rights activists this was a major win after all they had been through. John Lewis a well-known civil rights leader was thrilled saying that President Johnson had helped free and liberate all of us by signing the act (Berman, 6). Since the act protected the black populationΒs right to vote, the newly registered black voters flocked to the Democratic Party (Berman 72).