Catalysts
"Then I question America. Is this America - land of the free and home of the brave?"
- Fannie Lou Hamer, Vice-President, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 1964
- Fannie Lou Hamer, Vice-President, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 1964
Throughout the Civil Rights movement African-Americans witnessed the failure of voting rights legislation. Finally, Freedom Summer and the subsequent Selma March seized the nation’s attention, and spurred the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. |
Source: Testimony of Fannie Lou Hamer, vice-president, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. 1964
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Road to the Voting Rights Act
Civil Rights Act of 1957 and 1960President Eisenhower signs civil rights legislation
Source: Eisenhower Archives "...the first federal attempts to protect southern blacks' right to vote...based upon the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, employed a litigative strategy of enforcement which placed much faith in the federal courts' ability to rectify racial discrimination in the electoral process...this faith was badly misplaced."
- Professor David J. Garrow, "Protest at Selma" |
Civil Rights Act of 1964President Lyndon Baines Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Source: History and Arts Archive "When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed many decent Americans were lulled into complacency because they thought that the day of difficult struggle was over. THIS IS SELMA, ALABAMA. THERE ARE MORE NEGROES IN JAIL WITH ME THAN THERE ARE ON THE VOTING ROLLS!"
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., February 1, 1965 |