Following the US Civil War, southern blacks tasted legal equality for the first time, sending 14 deputies to the House of Representatives while electing two Senators. But the Supreme Court helped outraged whites eviscerate the gains, and African-Americans were purged from the voter rolls. New restrictions on voting - including poll taxes and literacy tests - were adopted to circumvent constitutional guarantees of equality. A wave of civil rights activism forced a reluctant President Lyndon B. Johnson to enact the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The attacks on black political participation never abated. Between 1982 and 2006, the act blocked more than 1,000 discriminatory changes to voting laws. After 2010, Republican-driven legislation in more than a dozen states approved fresh voting restrictions. In 2013, more than 75 have been adopted nation-wide. These provisions, many of which affect African-Americans disproportionately, add to the existing problem of felony disenfranchisement, which has deprived about seven percent of black men of their voting rights.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Jul 2013 16:29:31 +0000
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