Remember the Voting Rights Act
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Do you remember the Voting Rights Act of 1965?
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“It was both inspiring and just horrific.”
Jean O’Sullivan describes watching U.S. Reps. John Lindsay and Adam Clayton Powell vote to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965. O’Sullivan is now a state representative in Vermont. In this story, she mentions James Chaney, one of three civil rights workers killed in Mississippi in 1964. The attack has become known as Mississippi Burning. O’Sullivan also mentions her work with CORE, short for the Congress of Racial Equality.
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“We marched into the capital Montgomery…it was the highlight of my life.”
Edward Loughlin remembers when he met Dr. Martin Luther King and marched for civil rights in Montgomery, Alabama.
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“An example of bureaucracy that couldn’t change directions.”
Warren Weir remembers the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division’s struggle to turn away from moot projects after the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965.
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“I learned that to vote in Massachusetts in 1962, one had to be able to read in small print by a dim light from an obscure and no longer valid passage from the original Constitution.”
Harriet Griesinger remembers challenging the literacy test she was forced to take when she registered to vote in Massachusetts in 1962.
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“When i went downtown in Chapel Hill…they gave me a piece of paper and said ‘please read this.’ And I said ‘no, I won’t. I don’t have to, this is now illegal.’”
In 1968, Anne Vickery was living in North Carolina. She remembers that upon receiving a literacy test when she registered to vote—a request that had been outlawed with the passage of the Voting Rights Act—she refused.
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“On one side of the road was a completely different community than the other side of the road.”
While he was a page for the House of Representatives, Jeff Oshins remembers witnessing the signing of the Voting Rights Act. He also recalls growing up in Northern Virginia in the midst of segregation.
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“It wasn’t discussed, it wasn’t paid attention to…that’s a bit of a contra-experience of the Voting Rights Act.”
Steven McNeel grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles in a conservative household. He recalls his neighborhood’s seeming unwillingness to pay attention to the brewing civil rights movement.
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“I have not missed an opportunity to vote in the 46 years I have been registered.”
Shirley Bailey Zachery was entering her senior year of high school when the Voting Rights Act passed. She recalls her Civics instructor taking the class to register at the country courthouse.
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“I remember particularly being appalled at the idea that President Johnson would commandeer the slogan of the civil rights movement ‘We Shall Overcome,’ as his Democratic Party was unable to seat genuine representatives of voting rights in Mississippi.”
Brian Scanlan remembers lobbying Congress during the civil rights movement, and the contrast between President Lyndon Johnson and Southern Democrats.
