A Study On American Voting Rights Act Of 1965

There is an internal relationship between the development of American Blacks’ voting rights and the evolution of federalism. After the Reconstruction, black suffrage which had been confirmed by the Amendments of the Constitution gradually suffered a loss and then African Americans became second-class citizens.The fundamental reason contributing to this situation is that the federal government kept a blind and permissive attitude towards the Southern States which took advantage of such means as literacy test, poll tax, grandfather clause and white primary to disenfranchise the Blacks. However, since the federalism evolved into the cooperative federalism after the New Deal, the federal government had begun to strengthen the administration of voting issues. Therefore the Blacks suffrage gained certain progress. Ultimately, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which resulted from the Selma Movement was approved by Congress, and this represented a new height of the federal involvement in the field of voting.During the past decades after the ratification of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, due to the inherent defects of some provisions’applicable range and date, and the resistance of the state and local governments by diluting the black vote in the process of the Act enforcement, the Congress revised it continuously to extend the vitality of the Act.Meanwhile, the Supreme Court had played a significant role on the development of the Voting Rights Act. Initially, the Supreme Court enhanced the authority of the Voting Rights Act by means of supporting the constitutionality of the Act and confirming the Congress’s leadership on voting rights issues. Nevertheless, starting from 1980s, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Act turned into narrow under the New Federalism, thus to some extent weakening the potency of the Act.The promulgation and implementation of Voting Rights Act of 1965 not only endowed the Blacks and other minorities to enjoy the suffrage actually and hence improve their political status and participation, but also promote the development of American democracy. What’s more, the leading authority of the federal government on voting received validation and reinforcement.Although some unanticipated and unfavorable consequences appeared during the course of the Act implementation, it’s the mainstream that Voting Rights Act of 1965 had made significant achievements on promoting the suffrage of Blacks and other minorities.