HomeMy WebLinkAboutRES-2020-051 Resolution Celebrating the 55th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 WOO
RES - 2020 - 051
ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
RESOLUTION
Celebrating the 55th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act
WHEREAS , on February 26 , 1869 , the United States Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment to
the United States Constitution and subsequently ratified the Amendment on February 3 , 1870 , to
grant African American men the right to vote ; and
WHEREAS , African American males exercised the franchise and held political offices in many
states , particularly Southern states , throughout the 1880s ; and
WHEREAS , in the 1890s , literacy tests , grandfather clauses and other devices to disenfranchise
African American men were written into the constitutions of former Confederate states ; and
WHEREAS, with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, African American women were
granted the right to vote along with white women; and
WHEREAS, African Americans who attempted to register to vote experienced harassment,
intimidation, economic reprisals, physical violence and murder, including by lynching; and
WHEREAS, African American men and women nevertheless sought to secure their right to vote
through such organizations as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
and the National Urban League, as well as through the efforts of people such as A . Philip Randolph,
W. E . B . Dubois , Booker T . Washington, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker and Septima Clark; and
WHEREAS, in the 1960s , the widely broadcast reprehensible violence against demonstrators
brought heightened attention to the issue of voting rights - including the murders of Chaney,
Goodman and Schwerner on June 21 , 1964, and the attack on March 7 , 1965 , known as Bloody
Sunday; and
WHEREAS , on August 6, 1965 , President Lyndon B . Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, an " act
to enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution, " ninety- five years after it had been
ratified ; and
WHEREAS , the Voting Rights Act outlawed literacy tests and provided for the appointment of
federal examiners with the power to register qualified citizens to vote in those jurisdictions
covered according to a formula provided by the statute ; and
WHEREAS, Section 5 of the Act required covered jurisdictions to obtain preclearance from the
District Court for the District of Columbia or the United States Attorney General for any new voting
procedures and practices ; and
WHEREAS, Section 2 of the Act, closely following the language of the 151h Amendment, applied a
nationwide prohibition on the denial or abridgement of the right to vote on account of race or
color; and
WHEREAS, by the end of 1965 , a quarter of a million African Americans had registered as new
voters , and by the end of 1966 , four of the thirteen southern states had less than fifty percent of
African Americans registered to votes and
WHEREAS, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was extended in 1970 , 1975 1982 , and 2006 , and efforts
currently are underway to restore certain provisions of the Voting Rights Act;
NOW, THERFORE , BE IT RESOLVED , that the Orange County Board of Commissioners does
hereby support the passage of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of 2020 and hereby direct the
Chair to have sent a copy of this Resolution and a letter to both North Carolina United States
Senators encouraging them to support the passage of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act Of 2020 ;
and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED , that the Orange County Board of Commissioners , on behalf of the
people of Orange County, does hereby commemorate the fifty- fifth anniversary of the signing of
the Voting Rights Act of 1965 , and in so doing, acknowledge the sacrifices ma order to
establish and maintain full and equal rights for all citizens of the ite States .
This the 1st day of September, 2020 . �014
y Rich, Chai
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