Linked from

The 40 pages that link to Voting Rights Act of 1965, each with the reason it gives.

• Martin Luther King Jr.Related: The Selma campaign King supported helped spur its enactment.

• Jim Crow lawsRelated: It attacked the devices Southern states had used to disenfranchise Black voters.

• Lyndon B. JohnsonRelated: Johnson secured its passage after the Selma voting-rights campaign.

• United States House of RepresentativesRelated: Its protections and later litigation have influenced the boundaries and representation of House districts.

• Women's suffrage in the United StatesRelated: Its protections addressed barriers that continued to prevent many Black women from voting.

• Critical race theoryRelated: Its enforcement and subsequent restrictions provide material for studying law’s changing effects on racial power.

• Universal suffrageRelated: It addressed barriers that had nullified Black citizens' formal voting rights.

• Equal Protection ClauseRelated: Its protections complement constitutional limits on racially discriminatory voting rules.

• March on Washington for Jobs and FreedomRelated: The march’s call for voting rights anticipated the campaign that produced this law.

• Robert F. KennedyRelated: Kennedy's earlier civil-rights work helped build the political and legal effort it advanced.

• African-American historyRelated: It strengthened Black political participation where discriminatory rules had blocked registration and voting.

• Bayard RustinRelated: Rustin’s broader civil rights strategy included campaigns for political equality as well as public accommodations.

• NAACPRelated: The NAACP's long campaign against disenfranchisement helped create momentum for federal voting protections.

• Reconstruction AmendmentsRelated: It supplied enforcement tools against practices that evaded the Fifteenth Amendment.

• United States presidential electionRelated: It transformed access to the electorate whose votes feed presidential contests.

• A. Philip RandolphRelated: Randolph’s civil rights coalition helped sustain the wider movement that pressed for voting protections.

• Nineteenth AmendmentRelated: It illustrates the later federal enforcement tools used to protect voting rights beyond constitutional text.

• Southern Christian Leadership ConferenceRelated: The Selma campaign helped secure the political momentum behind its enactment.

• Fannie Lou HamerRelated: Hamer’s organizing helped build pressure for federal action against discriminatory voting rules.

• Selma to Montgomery marchesRelated: The marches helped build support for this landmark law, signed in August 1965.

• Southern strategyRelated: Its enforcement made federal intervention in Southern elections a central political issue.

• Alice PaulRelated: The Nineteenth Amendment did not end barriers to voting, a distinction later federal law addressed.

• Racism in the United StatesRelated: It targeted barriers that had blocked Black citizens from political participation.

• Student Nonviolent Coordinating CommitteeRelated: SNCC’s voter-registration campaigns exposed barriers the act was designed to dismantle.

• Fifteenth Amendment to the United States ConstitutionRelated: Congress used its enforcement power to counter practices that evaded the amendment’s guarantee.

• AlabamaRelated: Alabama’s voting-rights protests helped spur its passage.

• Civil Rights Act of 1957Related: Its stronger enforcement mechanisms addressed barriers the 1957 act could not readily overcome.

• Ku Klux KlanRelated: It countered the disenfranchisement and intimidation the Klan used against Black voters.

• Medgar EversRelated: It addressed voter suppression central to Evers’s organizing, though it passed after his death.

• RedistrictingRelated: Its protections constrain maps that dilute racial or language-minority voting power.

• Ralph AbernathyRelated: Abernathy participated in the Selma campaign that helped spur its enactment.

• Disfranchisement after ReconstructionRelated: It directly targeted devices and practices that had sustained Southern disfranchisement.

• African AmericansRelated: It addressed barriers that had denied many African Americans effective political participation.

• History of AlabamaRelated: The Selma campaign helped secure the law’s passage and enforcement.

• Politics of the United StatesRelated: It transformed access to political participation and federal oversight of elections.