Credit: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, U.S. News & World Report Magazine Collection

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Through the Jim Crow era, white Southerners disenfranchised black voters through violence, intimidation, and legal restrictions. The U.S. government did little to intervene until the second half of the 1900s. In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act to enforce the 15th Amendment.