The year 1965 probably was the one that required the best balancing act. Johnson was determined on creating his "Great Society", and to many Americans, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was not enough. Many people only saw it as the beginning of a comprehensive effort to deal with issues of discrimination, segregation, and equality that wouldn’t just involve where one could eat but access to political and economic power. President Johnson strongly believed with them as well, and he criticized those in power in the South for evading the spirit of the Fifteenth Amendment that prohibited discrimination and argued that all citizens were entitled to voting rights. Johnson finally decided that voting rights legislation was in order. Martin Luther King Jr. And SCLC protesters also motivated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and King led the protesters into Selma and then across Alabama in February and March. This Act gave the federal government the power to invalidate tests or qualifications used to deny persons the right to vote. Such documents included the Literacy Test. This test was a test that was used to see if you would qualify for voting before the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Act had immediate impact. Thousands of voters were registered in just weeks. However many people were homeless and without a home. Only weeks after Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, riots in Watts in the summer began. This began to weaken Johnson's hold of the congress; therefore, he was unable to attempt to extend the Civil Rights Act in 1966 into housing and
The year 1965 probably was the one that required the best balancing act. Johnson was determined on creating his "Great Society", and to many Americans, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was not enough. Many people only saw it as the beginning of a comprehensive effort to deal with issues of discrimination, segregation, and equality that wouldn’t just involve where one could eat but access to political and economic power. President Johnson strongly believed with them as well, and he criticized those in power in the South for evading the spirit of the Fifteenth Amendment that prohibited discrimination and argued that all citizens were entitled to voting rights. Johnson finally decided that voting rights legislation was in order. Martin Luther King Jr. And SCLC protesters also motivated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and King led the protesters into Selma and then across Alabama in February and March. This Act gave the federal government the power to invalidate tests or qualifications used to deny persons the right to vote. Such documents included the Literacy Test. This test was a test that was used to see if you would qualify for voting before the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Act had immediate impact. Thousands of voters were registered in just weeks. However many people were homeless and without a home. Only weeks after Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, riots in Watts in the summer began. This began to weaken Johnson's hold of the congress; therefore, he was unable to attempt to extend the Civil Rights Act in 1966 into housing and