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Article: Lyndon B. Johnson: Voting Rights Act Address
- Article from:
- West's Encyclopedia of American Law
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Lyndon B. Johnson: Voting Rights Act Address
On March 15, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress to urge the passage of new voting rights legislation. Although Johnson had successfully engineered the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C.A.
§
2000a et seq.) the year before, problems remained. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and other civil rights leaders demanded an end to racially discriminatory voting practices in the South. They organized public protests and voter registration drives that were met with intense resistance from local authorities.
When King and civil rights supporters marched to Selma, Alabama, in 1965 to demand ...