Friday, August 6, 1965: Voting Rights Act

WASHINGTON -- President Johnson signed his monumental Negro voting rights bill today, treading the century-old path of Abraham Lincoln, and declaring the new law is a triumph for freedom as great as any won on the battlefield.

     First, in the vaulted rotunda of the Capitol, Johnson said the measure will "strike away the last major shackles of those fierce and ancient bonds" which have bound American Negroes. ... Then he moved to the ornate President's Room off the Senate chamber, to etch his signature with dozens of souvenir pens, writing on a desk that Secretary Felton Johnson said Lincoln used in signing a measure to free slaves impressed into war service by the Confederacy. ... 

     By next week, he said, federal officials will be at work in the South, registering Negroes who have been kept from the polling place.

     -- Story from Associated Press (full story: @)

     -- Top photo, Johnson signing bill into law (Corbis); bottom photo, Camden, Alabama, 1966 (Flip Schulke)

* First and last page (www.ourdocuments.gov): @
* Full text (U.S. Statutes at Large, Volume 79, 89th Congress, 1st Session): @

* Text of LBJ speech (LBJ Library): @

* Video of LBJ speech (LBJ Library): @

* Universal Newsreel (Critical Past): @

* Photos (LBJ Library; search for "Voting Rights Act"): @ 
* Photos ("50th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act," Corbis Images): @
* "Voting Rights Legislation Means Changes For South" (James Marlow, Associated Press, August 9, 1965): @ 
* "A Million New Negro Voters?" (U.S. News & World Report, August 16, 1965; from Library of Congress): @
* "LBJ Signs Voting Bill; Attacks Poll Tax" (Jet magazine, August 19, 1965): @
* "The New Voting Law Goes into Action" (Life magazine, August 20, 1965): @
* "Introduction to Federal Voting Rights Law" (U.S. Department of Justice): @
* "Civil Rights in America: Racial Voting Rights" (National Historic Landmarks Program): @

* "Bending Toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy" (Gary May, 2013): @

* "The Most Fundamental Right: Contrasting Perspectives on the Voting Rights Act" (edited by Daniel McCool, 2012): @
* "Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965-1990" (edited by Chandler Davidson and Bernard Grofman, 1994): @ 

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