Fighting for Voting Fighting for Voting RightsRights

Essential Question: What methods did civil rights workers use to gain voting rights for African-Americans in the South?

Gaining Voting Rights

Attorney General Robert Kennedy urged SNCC leaders to focus on voter registration rather than on protests

SNCC, CORE, and other groups founded the Voter Education Project (VEP) to register southern African Americans to vote

VEP was a success—by 1964 they had registered more than a half million more African American voters.

Freedom Summer, 1964 Voting registration drive

in Mississippi Organized by SNCC 3/4 of volunteers were

northern white college students

3 volunteers were murdered, African American James Chaney & whites Michael Schwerner & Andrew Goodman

Selma Campaign

MLK Jr. and SCLC organized a march from Selma to Montgomery

Selma had a majority of blacks but made up only 3% of the registered voters

600 African Americans began the 54-mile march, but city and state police blocked their way out

TV cameras captured police brutality

Edmund Pettus Bridge – “Bloody Sunday”

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Outlawed use of discriminatory devices such as literacy tests and poll taxes and allowed federal officials to monitor voting registration

By the end of the year over 250,000 blacks had registered to vote

Talk to your neighbor:

1) What was Freedom Summer and what crisis occurred that summer?

2) What was the purpose of the Selma campaign? What happened during the march?

3) Why is the Voting Rights Act of 1965 significant?