Explainer: A brief introduction to the Voting Rights Act

Abstract

With the end of the Civil War in 1865, equal rights for African Americans were formally recognized in the U.S. through the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. These events initially led to a surge of African American voter registration and to the election of Black representatives, but the gains were quickly rolled back. By the late 1870s, a series of Supreme Court decisions, political deals, and legislative actions spelled the end of the ReconstructionEraandthedawnof JimCrow, the long period of legal repression of Black civil rights coupled with violent intimidation campaigns. Historians typically bracket the Jim Crow Era from 1877, when the federal troops who were enforcing anti-discrimination laws were withdrawnfromthe South, to 1965, with the passage of the Voting Rights Act.