Question

Why did the Voting Rights Act of 1965 increase turnout of Black voters in the US?

Question 14 options:


it mandated that at least one Black candidate be represented in every election


banned discriminatory voting restrictions


all of these


forced at least 1/3 of the Black community to vote or else they would be arrested

Answer 1

The correct answer is: "banned discriminatory voting restrictions "

The Voting Rights Act was a landmark federal law enacted in 1965 to enforce the equality of rights provisions that had already been included in the 14th and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution (Reconstruction Amendments) but that were not happening in practice. Such equality provisions included voting rights for all US citizens without discriminations in terms of race.

Many states, specially Southern ones, had been enacting regulations that tried to circumvent the equality provisions contained in the Reconstruction Amendments, and these procedures were ended with the enactment of the Voting Rights Act. Those regulations are known as the Jim Crow Laws, that indirectly prevented black people from voting by establishing requirements in order to have access to voting: minimum income level or literacy tests, that mostly excluded black citizens. Therefore, the new act was given powers to enforce the equality rights in practice.

Answer 2

banned discriminatory voting restrictions

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 increase turnout of Black voters in the US because it banned discriminatory voting restrictions that were in place before the act. The Voting Rights Act were seen as another step in the direction of equal civil right for all people, no matter their ethnicity, and it helped get elected the first black people in history.