Free at Last to Vote: The Alabama Origins of the 1965 Voting Rights Act

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Description

Even though the heroism of last century’s freedom marches will long be credited for ending racial discrimination, civil rights legislation owes much to work done more quietly in the district courtrooms of the South. This book expands our understanding of how the Voting Rights Act came about by That specialize in several key cases in Alabama that lead the way for this landmark legislation.

Brian Landsberg—himself a participant in many of these trials—argues that Department of Justice litigation contributed significantly to the content of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. His close analysis of these trials shows how they helped pave the way for the dramatic expansion of federal power in combating racist enforcement of voting laws. That specialize in three out of the seventy voting rights cases filed between 1957 and 1965, he reveals how the DOJ, newly armed with authority to bring civil suits against voting discrimination, aggressively pursued its efforts to implement the Reconstruction Amendments.

These cases in Elmore, Sumter, and Perry counties helped to expose the chasm between the objectives of the Fifteenth Amendment and the practices of southern voter registrars—and the equally deep chasm between practices in the Deep South and those in the remainder of the country—by showing that a simple requirement of racial neutrality wasn’t enough to guard against discrimination. The VRA adopted a number of the stringent remedies that emerged from these trials, including the appointment of federal officials to observe elections and handle lists of eligible voters and the need for federal approval for changes in local voting procedures.

Landsberg highlights a long-neglected but vitally essential chapter in the history of the civil rights movement and puts a human face at the struggle for the right to vote, enhancing our understanding of the efforts blacks made to register, the doubts of even moderate whites, and the role of federal agents in protecting voter rights. His study is especially welcome in light of the controversy surrounding the VRA’s contemporary renewal in 2006, which caught glimpses of the pre-VRA South, and current concerns over new and emerging forms of disenfranchisement.

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