Hill 1

Works Cited

Primary Sources

"Alabama Application for Registration, Questionnaire and Oaths." N.d. Digital file. The biggest obstacle to voting in the South was, arguably, literacy tests that were stacked against the applicant that weren't abolished until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This is a voter registration application many African-Americans used when trying to register to vote in the 1960s. This document included annotations by the Civil Rights Movement Veterans website that explained how the tests were often biased against African-Americans. This document helped me understand the need for an effective and all-encompassing piece of legislation that mandated voter registration in the Southern United States to allow African-Americans to register to vote without obstructions.

"Alabama Literacy Test." N.d. Digital file. Literacy tests were often specially designed to only allow the applicant to fail rather than succeed; often, whites registering to vote were not required to take the tests, whereas African-Americans were. This is a literacy test from the state of Alabama many African-Americans would be required to pass prior to registering to vote. This test helped me understand how voter suppression was carried out in the South.

"Barbara Jordan at the 1976 Democratic National Convention." Video file, 0:46. Youtube. Posted by American Civil Liberties Union Videos, February 8, 2013. Accessed January 27, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1421914687&x-yt-cl=84503534&v=vQi-fb3jBTw. The passage of the Voting Rights Act was integral in allowing more African-Americans to enter America's political scene. Barbara Jordan was one of the first African-American politicians elected following the passage of the Voting Rights Act. This is a portion of her keynote address at the Democratic National Convention of 1976. This video helped me understand how the Voting Rights Act affected the presence, or lack thereof, of African-Americans in national politics.

"Birmingham Voter Registration Project." N.d. Digital file. Throughout the Southern United States where African-Americans were denied the right to vote, many voter registration campaigns were held to reverse the disenfranchisement of African-Americans. This is a pamphlet sent out by its namesake, the Birmingham Voter Registration Project, to encourage, inform, and educate potential voters and activists in and around the Birmingham area. It provided insightful statistics detailing the current state of the registration of African-American voters at the time (1966). This immediate response to the passage of the Voting Rights Act puts the effect the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had on the Civil Rights Movement into perspective.

Hill 2

Boca Raton News (Boca Raton, FL). "Negro Registration Doubled since 1965." July 28, 1970. Immediately following the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, African-Americans began registering to vote unobstructed. This is a Florida newspaper article detailing the forecasts for African-American voter registration following the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This article also shows how the Voting Rights Act has affected African-American voting patterns and registration already. This article showed me the immediate effects the passage of the Voting Rights Act had on voter registration.

Civil Rights Act, C.F.R. (1964). The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the second of the three landmark pieces of legislation, the 24th Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act, that opened the door to undeterred suffrage for African-American citizens. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 required rules regarding voting to be equally applied to all races. This act helped me see what led up to the Selma to Montgomery Marches and the subsequent passage of the Voting Rights Act.

Civil Rights Act of 1875, S. 1, 43d Cong., 1st Sess. (1873). In the late 1800s, America experiences a dramatic shift following the Reconstruction Era which reverses all progress made through post Civil War legislation. A bill calling for the banning of public discrimination based on race is introduced by Charles Sumner on December 1, 1873; this bill, although passed, is repealed only four years later, symbolizing the dramatic shift in the nation away from civil rights and equality for African-Americans. This is Charles Sumner's bill. This bill helped me understand how the country went form a form of proposition of civil rights, during Reconstruction, to segregation and Jim Crow laws.

"Crusade for Citizenship." N.d. Digital file. During the nadir of American race relations, African-Americans were heavily disenfranchised and stripped of their rights as American citizens, including their right to vote. This is an informational pamphlet sent out by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to educate the African-American public of the realities of the suppression of African-American voters; this report included several statistics that detailed the statistical injustices in the current voting system. In Mississippi, less than 2% of African-Americans in the state were registered voters. This helped me see the conditions of voter suppression previous to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

Daily National Republican (Washington DC, DC). "The Fifteenth Amendment." March 31, 1870. The passage of the Fifteenth Amendment was the last of the Reconstruction Amendments, loosely and ineffectively granting the right to vote to all American citizens, supposedly including newly freed African slaves. This is a newspaper article detailing the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment. This article shows a public opinion and view on the Fifteenth Amendment at the time. This article helped me understand how the Fifteenth Amendment was originally planned to aid the nation's African-American population.

Hill 3

"The General Condition of the Alabama Negro." N.d. Digital file. The percent of registered African-American voters was a dismal comparison to the coinciding percentage of registered white voters. This is a report put out by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee that detailed statistics of African-Americans in Alabama; this paper included statistics on population sizes, employment, income, education, housing, and voter registration. This report showed me the existing demographics of African-Americans during the time of the Selma Marches,and it helped me understand some of the existing barriers to African-American suffrage.

Gordon, David M. "Sardis Farmer Waits for the Vote." The Southern Courier (Montgomery, AL), July 16, 1965. Immediately following the passage of the Voting Rights Act, there was a mass influx of African-Americans seeking to register to vote in the South. This article was an elaborated interview with an illiterate African-American farmer that was registering to vote. In the article, the farmer expresses his wish to oust Sheriff Clark from Dallas County, but he has not been able to express any dissent that carries political weight due to the restrictions set to oppress African-American voters. This newspaper article helped me understand how the Voting Rights Act helped African-Americans express their voices to help gain their rights.

Homer A. Plessy v. John H. Ferguson, 163 U.S. (1896). Throughout the nadir of American race relations, African-Americans experienced heavy prejudice which was legalized through many court cases and laws. This court case, commonly referred to as Plessy v. Ferguson, upheld the laws that required racial segregation. The most common provision of this court case is the referral to African-Americans as being "separate, but equal" to white Americans. This phrase continued to apply to African-American rights until the court case Brown v. Board of Education overturned this case. This court case helped me understand how African-American civil rights were systematically withheld and suppressed.

Indianapolis Recorder (Indianapolis, IN). "Negro Vote May Reach 7,000,000: NAACP." October 24, 1964. Following the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, America experienced a surge in African-Americans registering to vote. This is an article detailing how influential the African-American vote has the potential to be; the article also stresses that the current figures were a little over half of what the potential number could exceed (12,000,000). This article helped me see how important the Voting Rights Act could be in enfranchising African-Americans.

Hill 4

"JFK on Civil Rights." Video file, 1:35. Youtube. Posted by JFK Library, July 27, 2007. Accessed February 2, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWX_pjyIq-g. Due to pressure from outside nations during the Cold war, president John Kennedy began advocating for civil rights. This is a clip from one of his speeches in which he details his promotion of civil rights and equality for African-Americans. This clip helped me understand how the Cold War affected the Civil Rights Movement.

Johnson, Lyndon B. "Excerpt: LBJ's Voting Rights Speech 'The American Promise.'" Speech presented at Congress, Washington DC, DC, March 15, 1965. Video file, 5:28. Youtube. Posted by The Lyndon B. Johnson Library, December 7, 2011. Accessed January 26, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1421914687&x-yt-cl=84503534&v=VNjlwwf2K9g. In the 1960s, African-Americans across the nation were calling for an end to racial injustices being carried out everyday by law enforcement and the politics they did not have a say in. This is an excerpt from a speech by the president at the time of the Selma voter registration campaign, Lyndon B. Johnson, regarding voting rights during the time of the activism being carried out by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Alabama. This excerpt includes Johnson's call to Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. This video showed me how the effects of the marches at Selma rippled through the nation all the way up to the White House.

King, Martin Luther, Jr. "Bloody Sunday." Speech. Bloody Sunday was arguably the most influential event of the campaign to register voters in Dallas County, Alabama, due to the widespread media coverage of the police's brutality against the peaceful protestors and the subsequent call to action across the United States. This is one of Dr. Martin Luther King's many influential speeches regarding the plight for African-American suffrage; this speech addresses the horrors of the first attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery. This speech helped me understand how brutal the attacks by police on the protesters were; I also saw how unyielding the protestors were in their efforts to demonstrate against systematic voter suppression against African-Americans in the southern states.

. "Fumbling on the New Frontier." The Nation (New York City, NY), March 3, 1962. The beginning of the 1960s in America saw the beginnings of a solid and powerful movement calling for the granting of civil rights for African-American citizens.This is a newspaper written by the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Martin Luther King, Jr., detailing the current issues of the Civil Rights Movement in 1962. This helped me understand the perspective of the Civil Rights Movement from those at the forefront of the nationwide movement.

Hill 5

. "Let My People Vote." Speech transcript. Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and its call to end voter suppression in the Southern United States. This is one of Dr King's speeches regarding the importance of the legality of unobstructed suffrage for African-American citizens. In this speech, Dr. King insinuates that legislation enforcing the right to vote for African-Americans is nothing short of necessary. This speech gave me an important view inside the minds of the leaders and perpetrators of this movement for equality.

. "MLK Advocates Registering to Vote." Speech transcript. Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. was an important leader of both the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Civil Rights Movement as a whole. This is a short speech by Dr. King in which he emphasizes the importance of the vote to any acquisition of rights by any person. His short lecture helped me realize how much African-American suffrage had the potential to change. I quoted this speech on the home page of my website.

Ligon, Tina L. "FBI Case File #44-28492: Bloody Sunday." Rediscovering Black History. Last modified February 24, 2015. Accessed April 3, 2015. http://blogs.archives.gov/blackhistoryblog/2015/02/24/fbi-case-file-44-28492-bloody-sunday/. Bloody Sunday was the first and most effective of the Selma marches; the brazen police brutality at Selma was broadcast across the nation, igniting a call for action in the South. This website details Bloody Sunday and includes many documents and explanations of the day's events. This helped me understand how instrumental Bloody Sunday was in the success of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in bringing voter suppression out of the South and into the nation.

"Louisiana Literacy Test." N.d. Digital file. Literacy tests were one of the main methods of African-American voter suppression in the Southern United States. This is a literacy test used by the state of Louisiana to test African-American voters and subsequently suppress them. This voter literacy test helped me understand how the Voting Rights Act affected black voters; this document allowed me to compare the conditions of African-American voters previous to the passage of the Voting Rights Act and the conditions following its passage.

A Message from James Brown. Birmingham, AL: Southern Christian Leadership Conference, n.d. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 gave way to successful voter registration drives in the South to aid African-Americans exercise their full rights and privileges as true American citizens. This is a pamphlet sent out by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to encourage voters to register and exercise their new, unobstructed, right to vote. This pamphlet helped me see how voting drives were immediately enacted following the Voting Rights Act.

Hill 6

"Mississippi Freedom Primer No. 2." N.d. Digital file. Previous to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, many organizations fervently attempted to register African-American voters, often with little to no avail. This is a booklet detailing the importance of the African-American vote in the state of Mississippi. This booklet showed me how the importance of the African-American vote was not to be understated, especially in Southern states.

Nagourney, Adam. "Obama Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls." New York Times (New York City, NY), November 4, 2008. President Barack Obama is the first African-American president of the United States. This article detailed the significance of his election to the highest political office in the United States. This article helped me see a long term effect of the Voting Rights Act:an increased amount of African-Americans present in elected positions.

National Park Service. "Jim Crow Laws." Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site. Accessed January 26, 2015. http://www.nps.gov/malu/forteachers/jim_crow_laws.htm. Jim Crow Laws severely restricted the freedom of African-Americans. This website detailed the Jim Crow Laws that affected African-Americans in the southern United States to restrict their rights. Jim Crow Laws restricted African-American rights in areas including healthcare, transportation, leisure, education, marriage, and many other areas of American life. This website helped me understand how the Jim Crow Laws in the south restricted African-American rights to ultimately lead to the advent of the Civil Rights Movement.

National Parks Service. "Ku Klux Klan (KKK)." Civil Rights. Accessed February 2, 2015. http://www.nps.gov/subjects/civilrights/ku-klux-klan.htm. The Ku Klux Klan was one of many organizations created to suppress African-American voters during the nadir of American race relations. This article described the Ku Klux Klan and their intentions to suppress the freed African slaves. this article helped me understand one of the many ways the African-American vote was suppressed.

. "National Register of Historic Places Request - Selma, Alabama." National Register of Historic Places. Accessed April 3, 2015. http://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/pdfs/64501182.pdf. The Civil Rights Movement included events that acted as the predecessors to the Selma marches; the efforts of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Selma and the subsequent passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ultimately brought the movement as a whole to a general fruition. This is the form that explains why Selma, Alabama, should be registered in the National Register of Historic Places. This document provides an in-depth overview of Selma's history and influence on the Civil Rights Movement. This document helped me understand the history of the African-American voter registration campaign in Selma, and this document also provided me with an important overview of the Civil Rights Movement and its effects on Dallas County.

Hill 7

NBC. "1965: Voting Rights Act Signed." Video file, 1:55. NBC News. Accessed April 3, 2015. http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nbc-news/8645974#8645974. Broadcast to televisions nationwide, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, freeing African-Americans from practices designed to restrict them from registering to vote. This is a clip from a news broadcast about the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This video helped me understand how the message of the marchers in Selma rippled throughout the nation with reverence and success.

New-York Daily Tribune (New York, NY). "Freedom Triumphant." February 1, 1865. The Thirteenth amendment was the first of the three Amendments to the United States Constitution known as the Reconstruction Amendments. This is a newspaper article commencing the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This article refers to the Thirteenth amendment as the "Grandest Act Since the Declaration of Independence". This article helped me understand how the Thirteenth Amendment provided Constitutional opposition to slavery.

North Carolina Voter Education Project, October 1968. Following the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the African-American vote became a true talking point in American politics and political campaigns. This is a newsletter sent out by the North Carolina Voter Education to stress the importance of voter registration and the weight the African-American vote carries. This newsletter stated how the African-American vote had, before, been disrespected and ignored, yet now the African-American vote is highly influential. This helped me see how the Voting Rights Act affected major elections and political campaigns.

North Carolina Voter Education Project. Know Your Voting Rights. Illustrated by Thomas C. Daye. Durham, NC: North Carolina Voter Education Project, n.d. Immediately following the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, many organizations set out to register and educate disenfranchised African-Americans on their newfound voting rights given to them by the landmark piece of legislation. This booklet served to educate voters about their voting rights, such as those to watch the counting of the ballots and being able to work at the polls. This booklet helped me understand how the Voting Rights Act of 1965 affected the rights of African-Americans in reference to voting.

Office of History and Preservation Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives under the direction of The Committee on House Administration of the U.S. House of Representatives. Black Americans in Congress 1870-2007. Washington DC, DC: US Government Printing Office, 2008. The history of African-American representation in the American Congress has seen much tumult. This book provided a very helpful overview of African-Americans in Congress since the end of the Civil War. This book included many pictures and a plethora of helpful information that helped me understand the history of African-Americans in politics. This book also helped me understand how important the presence of African-Americans in Congress is to the acquisition of equality in our nation.

Hill 8

Oliver Brown, et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. (1954). Oliver Brown, et al vs. Board of Education of Topeka sought to desegregate schools in Kansas. This court case, commonly referred to as Brown v. Board of Education, overturned the ruling provided by the ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson that African-Americans were "separate, but equal" to white Americans. This was the first crucial step in the fight for African-American civil rights. This court case helped me understand how African-Americans began their fight to gain civil rights with this landmark court case.

Proclamation No. 95, 3 C.F.R. (1863). The Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery in several southern states as a measure by Abraham Lincoln in an attempt to end the Civil War by weakening the foundation of the Confederacy. This was the first measure to give African-Americans any rights in America. This proclamation helped me understand how the fight for rights carried out by African-Americans began.

Reed, Roy. "The Big Parade: On the Road to Montgomery." New York Times (New York City, NY), March 21, 1965. The first successful march, marked by the revocation of an injunction, prohibiting a march, due to pressure from the media, began on March 21 and ended at the steps of the Alabama state capitol on March 25. This is a newspaper article detailing the beginning of the successful march. this article helped me understand how far reaching the effects of the Selma campaign were and how effective the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was in publicizing the campaign.

. "The Big Parade: On the Road to Montgomery." New York Times (New York City, NY), March 21, 1965. The first successful march, marked by the revocation of an injunction prohibiting marchers from proceeding to Montgomery, by national pressure due to news coverage of the situation, began on March 21 and ended on March 25 at the steps of the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery, Alabama. This is a newspaper article providing details of the successful march to the American public. This article helped me understand how far reaching the effects of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference were.

. "Dr. King Leads March at Selma; State Police End It Peaceably under a U.S.-Arranged Accord." New York Times (New York City, NY), March 9, 1965. During the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's second attempt at marching from Selma to Montgomery to amass national attention to racial injustices in the South, a federal injunction was enacted to prevent the marchers from proceeding from Edmund Pettus Bridge. This newspaper shows the effects of the injunction. This newspaper helped me understand how the march was inhibited, but, more importantly, this newspaper showed me how the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's true goal in publicizing Selma was met on a national scale in one of the most-read newspapers in the nation.

Hill 9

. "25,000 Go to Alabama's Capitol; Wallace Rebuffs Petitioners; White Rights Worker Is

Slain." New York Times (New York City, NY), March 25, 1965. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference's goal in organizing the Selma marches was to bring national awareness to the struggling voter registration situation in Selma. This is a newspaper article from the New York Times detailing the marches. This article shows me how the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's efforts were successful in bringing the issue of voter suppression in the South to the nation's doorstep.

"Register Now!" N.d. Digital file.

Voter registration campaigns began immediately after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This is a poster sent out by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1966 to encourage voting immediately following the passage of the Voting Rights Act. An interesting feature of this poster is the fact that it mentions that no reading or writing will be required at the voter registration area. This poster helped me understand how the Voting Rights Act impacted voter registration and how voter registration drives were enacted.

"SCLC Voter Registration Program." N.d. Digital file. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was the driving force in the Civil Rights Movement in the South; through voter education programs and widespread activism, they brought freedom to disenfranchised African-Americans. This is a program from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference detailing their voter registration activism. This helped me understand how powerful and influential the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was in reversing the damage of the nadir of American race relations by fighting to give strength to African-Americans.

"The S.C.L.C. Voter Registration Prospectus for 1962." N.d. Digital file. Voter registration campaigns existed previous to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's attempts to bring national attention to voter suppression in the South in 1965, but to little avail. This is a report by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference regarding the tactics and basis for voter registration projects during the year 1962. This report included voting patters and predictions for future voting patterns of the African-American community. This helped me understand how the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led a charge to bring African-Americans their right to vote which they knew would lead to overall equality.

Hill 10

"SNCC - Bloody Sunday." N.d. Digital file. The first attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery resulted in the nickname "Bloody Sunday", as violence erupted between police and marchers; this event amassed national attention and achieved the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's goal of bring the issue of voter suppression outside Selma and into the nation. This is a recollection of the events of the first attempt of a march from Selma to Montgomery, also known as "Bloody Sunday" due to the massive number of injuries resulting from police brutality. This publication, put out by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the former leaders of the civil rights front in Selma previous to the arrival of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, describes, in detail, the events of Bloody Sunday. This helped me empathize with the true brutality of the Civil Rights Movement, the Selma Marches in particular.

Stanford University. "25 March 1965 - Address at the Conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery March." Martin Kuther King, Jr. and the Global Struggle. Accessed April 2, 2015. http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_address_at_the_conclusion_of_selma_march/. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was at the forefront of the Selma Campaign, as he led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at the time; at the conclusion of the final march at the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery, King delivered a speech to demonstrate the power of the Selma Campaign and the marches from Selma to Montgomery. This website had the audio from the speech and an accompanying transcript of the speech. This speech helped me understand the effect of the Selma marches on the state of African-American affairs, and the power the publicity of Selma had on the nation as a whole.

"The State of Louisiana Literacy Test." N.d. Digital file. Literacy tests often suppressed voters through unfair questions, ambiguous wording, and biased poll workers. This is a voter literacy test from the state of Louisiana; this test includes several questions that were intentionally worded as paradoxes so as to make it impossible to pass. There is a written time limit unfit for the amount and strength of the questions, and this time limit could be waived for white testers. This test allowed me to understand how important the Voting Rights Act was to the suppression of African-American voters, and it helped me sympathize with the African-American voters who were systematically oppressed by a system rigged to keep them from gaining their rights.

Hill 11

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. "Report, September 17-20, 1963." N.d. Digital file. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, in coordinating with the Dallas County Voters League, held voter registration campaigns across Alabama to help African-Americans overcome barriers to their suffrage. This is a report from mid-September detailing voter registration efforts in Birmingham, Alabama. This report includes commentary on white voting drives to provide an interesting juxtaposition between the African-American voter registration efforts and the white voter registration efforts. This report helpedme understand the effectiveness of the barriers that prevented African-Americans from voting.

. "SNCC: Reports from Selma." N.d. Digital file. Throughout the Southern United States, many organizations set out to register disenfranchised African-American voters and to help them overcome the restricting boundaries of voter suppression that were prevalent across the South. This is a report sent out by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1962 detailing their efforts to register voters in Dallas County, Alabama. This report helped me understand how potential African-American voters experienced unfair challenges such as literacy tests, incompetent poll workers, and unfair conditions at polling stations.

Talese, Gay. "The Walk through Selma." New York Times (New York City, NY), March 9, 1965. Because the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had a influential legacy previous to the Selma Campaign, their efforts immediately broadcast through the United States media. This article details the first attempts at marching in Selma. This article helped me understand how the Southern Christian Leadership Conference helped the Selma Campaign reach Americans' doorsteps almost immediately.

Tennessee State Government. "Jim Crow and Disfranchisement of Southern Blacks." African-American Legislators in 19th Century Tennessee. Accessed April 3, 2015. http://www.tn.gov/tsla/exhibits/blackhistory/jimcrow.htm. Follow the end of the Reconstruction Era, African-Americans experienced extraordinary amounts of segregation and suppression across the South. This is an article detailing the post-Reconstruction Era and how African-Americans were oppressed during the time. This helped me understand how African-Americans were disenfranchised previous to being granted their right to vote unobstructed.

"The Text of Judge's Order Banning Alabama March." N.d. Digital file. Following the atrocities at Bloody Sunday on March 7th, a second attempt at marching from Selma to Montgomery was inhibited by an injunction issued by federal judge Frank Johnson. This file is the text of the injunction issued by Judge Johnson that created the second attempt at marching's nickname: Turnaround Tuesday. This injunction helped me understand how the Selma Marches faced many challenges, yet the Southern Christian Leadership Conference still managed to succeed in their plans for the city of Selma and, by extension, the American South.

Hill 12

United States Census Bureau. "Facts for Features: *Special Edition* the 50th Anniversary of the I Have a Dream Speech and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom." Newsroom. Last modified August 21, 2013. Accessed January 30, 2015. http://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2013/cb13-ff22.html. The effects of the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as, arguably, the most important victory of the Civil Rights Movement, have brought freedom to African-Americans. This page provided several invaluable charts detailing the changes in African-American rights since the advent of the Civil Rights Movement; among these charts were charts detailing the change in African-American voter registration and the change in the amount of African-American elected officials. This site helped me understand the changes in African-American rights since the Civil Rights Movement.

United States Commission on Civil Rights. Political Participation. Washington DC, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1968. Immediately following the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, African-Americans immediately took to the voting booths to register their votes and exercise their unobstructed right to vote. This book, written by the United States Commission on Civil Rights in 1968, details information and statistics of African-American voting immediately following the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This book helped me understand the effect of the Voting Rights Act and its effect on African-American voters.

United States Congress United States Senate. CRS Report for Congress Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress African American Members of the United States Congress: 1870-2012. By Jennifer E. Manning and Colleen J. Shogan. Washington DC, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2012. Ever since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the amount of African-Americans present in the United States Congress has been steadily increasing. This report provided detailed numbers and figures that showed how the presence of African-Americans in the United States Congress has been progressively increasing. This report showed me the legacy of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's efforts in Selma.

U.S. Const. amend. XIII. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States was the first of three amendments to the United States Constitution to make up the "Reconstruction Amendments". This amendment created a constitutional reason to abolish slavery and subsequently freed the slaves. This amendment helped me see how African-Americans embarked on their legal battle to fully gain their rights.

Hill 13

U.S. Const. amend. XIV. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was the second of three amendments to the United States Constitution that made up the "Reconstruction Amendments". This amendment gave all people born in the United States citizenship. Through the provisions of this amendment, the slaves freed through Civil War legislation became citizens of the United States. This amendment helped me understand how African-Americans gained rights following the Civil War.

U.S. Const. amend. XV. The 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution was the final of the three amendments known as the "Reconstruction Amendments". The Fifteenth Amendment granted African-American males the right to vote, stating that every American citizen had the right to vote regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude". It is noted that the Fifteenth Amendment did not comment on the condition of a voter's intelligence or monetary status. This amendment helped me see where and how the fight for the right to vote for African-Americans truly began.

U.S. Const. amend. XXIV. The 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution formally disbanded the use of poll taxes, which were a popular method of voter suppression in the southern United States. This amendment was the first of three integral pieces of legislation, the other two being the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that prevented widespread voter registration in the southern United States. This amendment gave me insight into the ends of voter suppression in the South.

United States House of Representatives. "JORDAN, Barbara Charline." History, Art, and Archives. Accessed February 2, 2015. http://history.house.gov/People/Listing/J/JORDAN,-Barbara-Charline-%28J000266%29/. Barbara Jordan played an important role in the history of African-American freedom in American politics. This is a short biography and detailing of Barbara Jordan, the first African-American senator since Reconstruction. This page helped me understand how the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 affected the presence of African-American politicians on a national stage, as Jordan was elected in 1966, one year following the Voting Rights Act's passage.

"Voting in Negro Majority Counties." N.d. Digital file. There was an obvious rift between the amount of eligible registered African-American voters and eligible registered white voters in Southern states. This is a simple graph showing the rates of voter registration among blacks and whites in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia in the year 1961. This lack of balance between the two rates and the obvious disconnect between white voter registration and African-American voter registration stresses the importance of federal legislation to aid undeterred African-American suffrage. This helped me see the need for the Voting Rights Act.

Hill 14

Voting Rights Act, C.F.R. (1965). The Voting Rights Act was the third integral piece of legislation, the other two being the 24th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that led to the era of true integration of African-Americans and white Americans. the Voting Rights Act was perhaps the most crucial piece of legislation passed during the Civil Rights Movement, as it opened the doors completely to African-American voters, providing the Civil Rights Movement with the momentum it needed to persevere onwards in its final goal of true equality. This act outlawed any evident racial discrimination against African-Americans in terms of voting; the act also outlawed the use of literacy tests in voter registration. This act helped me see what the fruits of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's efforts in the Selma Marches lead to, and why they were as important as they were.

"Voting Rights and Terrorism in the South." N.d. Digital file. Terrorism was a widespread method to disenfranchise African-Americans. This document stresses the importance of the vote on the future of African-American health and welfare in the southern United States. This document also puts importance on putting effort into voting by African-Americans, for if African-Americans do not exercise their right to vote, then the entire purpose of the Selma Marches and the passage of the Voting Rights Acts is somewhat useless. This document helped me see how the movement for African-American suffrage was not only a legal battle, but a social one as well.

Wattson, Peter S. "1990s Supreme Court Redistricting Decisions." Minnesota Senate. Accessed April 3, 2015. http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/departments/scr/REDIST/red907.htm#The%20Need%20to%20Live%20in%20the%20District. Racial Gerrymandering arouses many questions about the current state of voting rights in America with a particular emphasis on the dilution of the minority vote. This website details some issues with gerrymandering in congressional districts. This website helped me understand how the Voting Rights Act of 1965 still applies to the modern day.

Wicker, Tom. "Johnson Urges Congress at Joint Session to Pass Law Insurging Negro Vote." New York Times (New York City, NY), March 16, 1965. Responding to outside pressure, the president at the time of the Selma Marches, Lyndon Johnson, advocated for an efficient piece of legislation to aide disenfranchised African-American voters in the South. This newspaper details Johnson's call to action at a joint session of Congress. This speech was important, as it saw a rare time in which a president use words commonly used by protestors, in this case, "We shall overcome". This newspaper helped me understand how the effects of the Selma Marches reached the highest levels of the United States bureaucracy.

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WSB-TV. "WSB-TV Newsfilm Clip of an Atlanta Civil Rights March Protesting Alleged Police Brutality in Selma, Alabama, Atlanta, Georgia, 1965 March 16." Video file, 16:00. Civil Rights Digital Library - University System of Georgia. Accessed April 3, 2015. http://crdl.usg.edu/cgi/crdl?format=_video&query=id%3Augabma_wsbn_47853&_cc=1. Following the broadcast of police brutality against protestors in Selma, national outcry turned into full on protests and demonstrations that eventually drove Frank Johnson to revoke the injunction he had issued that barred marchers from proceeding to Montgomery from Selma. This video shows one such protest in Georgia. This video showed me how the Selma marches incited a nation-wide movement that is the true success of the Selma marches.

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Secondary Sources

American Civil Liberties Union. "Oppose Voter ID Legislation - Fact Sheet." Defending Targets of Discrimination. Last modified July 21, 2011. Accessed April 7, 2015. https://www.aclu.org/voting-rights/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-sheet. Voter identification laws have affected minority voters in many states, causing the provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to affect politics still today, fifty years after its initial passage. This website details how the voter identification laws create barriers for minority voters. This website helped me understand how the efforts of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 continues to help eliminate racial barriers present in today's society.

Aretha, David. Selma and the Voting Rights Act. The Civil Rights Movement. Greensboro, NC: Morgab Reynolds Publishing, 2008. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference's role in publicizing the campaign to register African-American voters in Dallas County, Alabama, lead to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, thus banning the use of literacy tests. This book details the Selma Marches and how they affected the nation as a whole, primarily through the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This book granted me a broader overview of my topic so I could see the precursors and repercussions of the efforts of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's to further the Civil Rights Movement through the Selma Marches.

Balogh, Brian. "1965 Voting Rights Act and African-American Voting." Video file, 9:43. University of Richmond. Accessed April 3, 2015. http://dsl.richmond.edu/voting/balogh.html. The Voting Rights Act had far-reaching effects for African-Americans, so they could have a say in their future through their politics. This video described the background of the Voting Rights Act and how it affected the nation and voting patterns. This video helped me understand how the Voting Rights Act affected American politics and the welfare of African-Americans.

Bernstein, Adam. "Ala. Sheriff James Clark; Embodied Violent Bigotry." The Washington Post (Washington DC, DC), June 7, 2007. Sheriff Jim Clark of Selma, Alabama, instigated the Bloody Sunday violence, adding to a track record including using cattle prods on potential voters in Dallas County. This newspaper article chronicles some of the life and achievements of sheriff Sames Clark of Dallas County, the county in which the Selma Marches took place. This article also showed how the passage of the Voting Rights Act affected voting turnouts, particularly in the southern United States. This article helped me understand the influence of the Voting Rights Act.

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Blumenthal, Mark, and Ariel Edwards-Levy. "POLLSTER UPDATE: The Data behind the Supreme Court's Voting Rights Act Decision." Huffington Pollster. Last modified June 25, 2013. Accessed January 30, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/25/voting-rights-data_n_3498835.html. The passage of the Voting Rights Act gave strength to African-American voters that had been denied a voice for so long. This article detailed the current views of the Voting Rights Act in America; this article also provided several comparisons of voter demographics previous to the passage of the Voting Rights Act and following the passage of the Voting Rights Act. This article helped me understand how the Voting Rights Act affected the nation, and this article also gave me interesting insight on the modern perception of the Voting Rights Act in America.

Carter, David C., Ph.D. E-mail interview by the author. April 10, 2015. Doctor David Carter is an author and educator of the Civil Rights Movement at Auburn University. Doctor Carter gave me an in depth understanding of the Selma Marches and other significant events of that movement and time period; Doctor Carter also helped me understand the effects of the Civil Rights Movement on the condition of African-Americans. My interview with Doctor Carter helped me create a solid foundation of understanding of the Selma Marches and subsequent events.

Chestnutt, Charles W. The Disenfranchisement of the Negro. N.p.: n.p., 1903. Almost immediately after the passage of the Reconstruction Era's pieces of legislation to grant former African slaves rights as American citizens, they were taken away. This book details an inside look at the state of African-Americans during the height of the period of disenfranchisement. This book helped me understand the need for the Civil Rights Movement and, by extension, the right to unobstructed voting for African-Americans.

Chokshi, Niraj. "How Felon Voting Policies Restrict the Black Vote." The Washington Post (Washingt D.C., DC), February 12, 2014. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 still affects American politics to fight the continuing disenfranchisement of African-American voters. This articles shows how African-Americans continue to experience barriers to prevent them from voting. This article helped me understand the legacy of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in relation to modern voting barriers.

Coleman, Kevin J. The Voting Rights Act of 1965: Background and Overview. N.p.: Congressional Research Service, 2014. The main provision of the Voting Rights Act was the abolition of any device that inhibits the registration of African-American voters. This is a paper written about both the precursors and provisions of the Voting Rights Act; the paper analyzes and simplifies the information provided by the act and displays a concise background to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. This paper showed me exactly what the Voting Rights Act entails and how it affects African-American voters.

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Dudziak, Mary L. "The Little Rock Crisis and Foreign Affairs: Race, Resistance, and the Image of American Democracy." Southern California Law Review. The Cold War was an integral catalyst to the Civil Rights Movement, as it pressured America into supporting civil rights and thus strengthening its influence in its battle against Communism. This article showed me how the Civil Rights Movement, the Cold War, and America's image of Democracy coincided to produce the majority of the success of the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement showed the outside world the injustices of America, who had spent a large amount of its influence fighting for "freedom" for others. This article helped me understand the success of the Civil Rights Movement.

Eilperin, Juliet. "Whats Changed for African Americans since 1963, by the Numbers." Washington Post (Washington DC, DC), August 22, 2013. The Voting Rights Act was essential in providing African-Americans the strength to achieve the goals of the Civil Rights Movement by providing them with a voice that carried weight in American politics. This article detailed how African-American life has changed since 1963, two years previous to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. One of the most significant provisions of this article were the provided figures of the number of African-Americans in Congress and the numbers of African-American voters. This article helped me understand how the Voting Rights Act impacted the nation politically.

Ginzberg, Eli, and Alfred S. Eichner. The Troublesome Presence: American Democracy and the Negro. New York, NY: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1964. The popular opinion and depictions of African-Americans before the Civil Rights Movement were often not favorable, especially in the Southern United States. This book detailed a history, albeit a rather biased history, of African-Americans previous to the Civil Rights Movement. The African-American Civil Rights Movement was rooted in deep foundations including slavery, persecution, and a complete lack of a voice. This book, ending in 1964, concludes with the current situation of the Civil Rights Movement. This book helped me understand how the movement for the civil rights of African-Americans has been a long and tumultuous road.

Handley, Lisa. "The Impact of the Voting Rights Act on Black Representation in Southern State Legislatures." Legislative Studies Quaterly, February 1991. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 gave strength to African-Americans to vote for their values and ideals, thus America experienced a dramatic rise in the number of African-American politicians as a result. This article displayed and analyzed the impact of the Voting Rights Act on the election of African-Americans to political offices. This article provided many valuable charts and tables that visually displayed the changes the Voting Rights Act wrought upon the nation. This article helped me understand the importance of the Voting Rights Act on African-American representation in the South.

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Hanson, Holly. "Dallas County Voters League." Civil Rights Teaching. Accessed April 2, 2015. http://civilrightsteaching.org/resource/dallas-county-voters-league/. Beginning with the end of World War II, many African-Americans began fighting for their rights that they had been denied. The Dallas County Voters League took root in Dallas County, Alabama, as a predecessor to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Southern Christian Leadership Conference to attempt to register voters in Dallas County. This website details the efforts of the Dallas County Voters League to register African-American voters, with little avail. This website helped me understand the situation the Southern Christian Leadership Conference inherited in Selma, Alabama.

Harris, Matt, Ph.D. Interview by the author. Pueblo West, CO. January 18, 2015. Doctor Matt Harris teaches U.S. History I, Historiography, America to 1787, Early America to 1763, and The New American Nation, 1763-1830 at the Colorado State University - Pueblo campus. Dr. Harris gave me valuable information on the Civil Rights Movement as a whole, including its origins following the Civil War, some adversities the movement faced, and the ultimate goals of the Civil Rights Movement. My personal interview with Dr. Harris was crucial in my understanding of the Civil Rights Movement and the significance of the Selma to Montgomery Marches.

Hartford, Bruce. The Selma Voting Rights Struggle and March to Montgomery. San Francisco, CA: Westwind Writers, 2014. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference built upon an existing voter registration campaign in Selma, Alabama, a city with prevalent suppression of African-American voters. This book details the existing campaign prior to the entrance of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the legacy of the Marches. This book helped me understand the legacy of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the effects on African-American voter registration in the South.

"Isarithmic History of the Two-Party Vote." Video file, 1:14. YouTube. Posted by David B. Sparks, Ph.D., November 11, 2010. Accessed April 10, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k4h62jRiUcc. Following the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Southern voting bloc was dissolved and the political power in the South shifted from being primarily Democratic to having a large following of both the Democratic party and the Republican party. This video uses data from local elections to show the shifts in voting patterns across the nation; I focused on the changes in the South and saw the change from the early 1950s to the late 1960s from completely Democratic to almost completely Republican. This video helped me understand the importance, significance, and immediate impacts of the allowance of unobstructed voting for African-Americans provided by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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Jacobs, Ben. "Do We Still Need the Voting Rights Act?" Daily Beast, November 25, 2012. The Voting Rights Act maintains relevance even in the modern day, as many see injustices in current voting conditions that affect the minority vote. This article explains a viewpoint of the current state of voting rights in America, addressing issues such as racial gerrymandering. This article helped me see how the effects of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's efforts in publicizing the situation in Selma carry on even today.

Knafo, Saki. "How the Voting Rights Act Changed Congress in 1 Chart." Black Voices. Last modified August 6, 2013. Accessed January 30, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/06/voting-rights-act-anniversary_n_3715706.html?utm_hp_ref=black-voices&ir=Black%20Voices. The Voting Rights Act was indispensable in diversifying the political scene of the United States. This article is centered around a chart that visually displays the change in the representation of African-Americans in Congress since 1965, the year the Voting Rights Act was passed. This chart and subsequent article helped me understand exactly how the Voting Rights Act affected the African-American demographic in Congress.

Logan, Rayford Whittington. The Negro in American Life and Thought: The Nadir, 1877-1901. New York, NY: Dial Press, 1954. Race relations in America took a severe dive following the Reconstruction Era resulting in the disenfranchisement of African-Americans. This book details the period of American race relations following the Civil War and lasting until the beginning of the 1900s which was marked by stark denials of rights for African-Americans. This period, commonly referred to as the "nadir" of American race relations, brought many forms of segregation both in de facto and de jure ways. This book showed me how the beginnings of the denial of African-American rights became rooted in American history.

May, Gary. Bending toward Justice - the Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy. Philadephia, PA: Basic Books, 2013. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 provided African-Americans with the strength they had so long been denied to determine their destiny. This book gave a very in depth and dramatic overview of the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This book helped me understand how exactly the Voting Rights Act affected the lives of African-Americans in the South. This book also helped me realize the absolute importance of suffrage and maintaining a resolute and powerful voice in what controls you.

Mayer, Michael, Ph.D. E-mail interview by the author. April 8, 2015. Doctor Michael Meyer studies United States since 1945, History of American Law, U.S. Civil Rights Movement, and Post-World War II American Culture at the University of Montana. Doctor Meyers elucidated the Civil Rights Movement as a whole and how Selma affected the nation. My interview with Doctor Meyers helped me understanding the effects of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on the Civil Rights Movement and the progression of the health and welfare of African-Americans.

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Ornstein, Norman J., Thomas E. Mann, Michael J. Malbin, Andrew Rugg, and Raffaela

Wakeman. Vital Statistics on Congress. Washington DC, DC: Brookings Institution, 2013. The diversity of Congressional representatives was virtually nonexistent following the nadir of American race relations. This report details many statistics on the makeups of Congress over the years, including graphs and charts detailing the racial makeup of members of Congress of certain regions over the years. This report helped me understand how the Voting Rights Act shifted the demographics of members of Congress from the South.

Pimblott, Kerry, Ph.D. E-mail interview by the author. April 7, 2015. Doctor Kerry Pimblott teachers Intro to African-American Studies, African-American History, The African Diaspora, Black Freedom Movements, and The Black West at the University of Wyoming. Doctor Pimblott helped me understand the significance of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Selma Campaign, and the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on African-Americans. My interview with Doctor Pimblott helped me make sense and gave me a deeper understanding of my topic.

Pitts, Michael J. "Alabama Law Review; The Voting Rights Act and the Era of Maintenance." N.d. Digital file. The Voting Rights Act is still relevant today, as many challenges exist that affect the minority vote. This is a paper defining the effects of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, with a particular emphasis on how the law is enforced and challenged even today. This paper gave me information on the immediate effects of the Voting Rights Act including its impact on voter registration of African-Americans and its resulting political impacts across the nation.

"Playfair." Focus Magazine: The Magazine of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, May/June 2005. Unobstructed voting is a tenant of freedom in the United States. This article, sent out by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, provides several statistics of the effects of the Selma Marches and, by extension, the passage of the Voting Rights Act. This article helped me understand how the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's efforts in Selma opened up a completely new world in the Civil Rights Movement and, also, the quest for unobstructed African-American suffrage.

Plummer, Brenda Gayle, Ph.D. E-mail interview by the author. April 13, 2015. Doctor Brenda Plummer teaches Afro-American History and History of U.S. Foreign Relations at the University of Wisconsin - Madison campus; her primary areas of research include Afro-Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs and Race and Gender in the Cold War Era. Doctor Plummer told me how the African-American community was affected by the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Doctor Plummer helped me understand the health and welfare of African-Americans both before and after the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's influence in the Selma Marches.

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"Separate Is Not Equal: Brown v. Board of Education." Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Accessed January 26, 2015. http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/index.html. Previous to the Civil Rights Movement, African-Americans experienced open discrimination, primarily in the Southern United States. This website detailed the precursors to the Civil Rights Movement beginning with Jim Crow Laws in the southern United States. The Civil Rights Movement began with a well-organized legal campaign that proceeded to spark a revolution with the success in the Brown v. Board of Education court case. This helped me understand how the Civil Rights movement began and gained success.

Smith, Dale Cheryl. The Impact of the Negro Vote on Alabama Elections since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Denton, TX: North Texas University, 1972. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 had an astronomical impact,even immediately following its passage, on the nation's politics. This book details how the surge in African-American voters affected the nation, including political figures like the sheriff of Selma, Jim Clark, and the governor of Alabama, George Wallace. This book helped me understand how the Voting Rights Act allowed African-Americans to express their full rights as American citizens.

Southern Poverty Law Center. "Percentages of People Who Lack a Government-Issued Photo ID, 2008-2012." Teaching Tolerance. Accessed April 3, 2015. http://www.tolerance.org/sites/default/files/general/Percentage%20of%20People%20Who%20Lack%20ID_0.pdf. One of the most prevalent barriers to minority voters is many states' requirements for potential voters to present a photo identification; this barrier keeps the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in modern political conversation. This is a graph showing the percentage of minority voters who do not have a government-issued photo identification compared to the cumulative nation-wide demographic. This chart helped me understand how the Voting Rights Act is still important today, as no one should be presented a barrier to vote.

. "The Voting Rights Act of 1965." Teaching Tolerance. Accessed April 3, 2015. http://www.tolerance.org/sites/default/files/general/voting%20rights%20act.pdf. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 achieved several major goals including the abolition of literacy tests and the strengthening of the Fifteenth Amendment which granted the right to vote to all naturalized citizens of the United States. This website summed up the provisions of the Voting Rights Act and provided an explanation of the Voting Rights Act. This website helped me understand how exactly the Voting Rights Act helped disenfranchised African-American voters.

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"Timeline: A History of the Voting Rights Act." American Civil Liberties Union. Accessed January 26, 2015. https://www.aclu.org/timeline-history-voting-rights-act. The history of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is long and diverse, beginning with slavery and continuing to this day. This is a timeline pertaining to the Voting Rights Act, as well as several pieces of background information and several important effects. This timeline helped give me a base for my research to build upon, as it provides a very important overview of my topic.

Tokaji, Daniel P. "The New Vote Denial: Where Election Reform Meets the Voting Rights Act." N.d. Digital file. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has had profound effects on the political stage in America by adding African-American voters. This paper details the effects of the Voting Rights Act on even modern elections; it connects the effects of the passage of the Voting Rights Act to modern day elections and voting patterns. This paper helped me understand how the Voting Rights affected the nation politically, socially, and economically by demolishing barriers set to disenfranchise African-American voters in the southern United States.

Tougaloo College. "The March to Montgomery." Civil Rights Movement Veterans. Accessed January 30, 2015. http://www.crmvet.org/images/imgmont.htm. The march from Selma to Montgomery brought national attention to the injustices being carried out against African-Americans seeking the right to vote in the South. This web page provides multitudes of photographs taken during the three attempts at marching from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery. This pictures helped me understand the true magnitude of the Selma Marches, and, through these pictures, I understood why these marches were so influential in reforming the nation's policies on the rights of African-Americans seeking the right to vote.

Tuskegee University. "Lynching, Whites and Negroes, 1882-1968." Tuskegee University Archives Online Repository. Accessed January 26, 2015. http://192.203.127.197/archive/bitstream/handle/123456789/511/Lyching%201882%201968.pdf?sequence=1. Lynchings were a relatively common method of instilling fear in African-Americans and discouraging potential African-American voters. This is a table detailing the rates of lynching of both white Americans and African-Americans from 1882 until 1968. Since 1885, the rate of lynching of African-Americans has surpassed that of white Americans. The apex of the rate of lynching of African-Americans coincides with the nadir of race relations in America immediately following the Civil War. This chart helped me see how race relations in America took a disastrous turn during the period in American history commonly referred to as the "nadir" of American race relations.

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United States Department of Justice - Civil Rights Division - Voting Section. "The Effect of the Voting Rights Act." Introduction To Federal Voting Rights Laws. Accessed January 27, 2015. https://epic.org/privacy/voting/register/intro_c.html. The numbers of the changing voter registration demographics immediately followed the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This website provides valuable information regarding the effects of the Voting Rights Act on voter registration. This website has several charts and graphs regarding the influx in African-American voter registration immediately following the Voting Rights Act. This website helped me understand how influential the Voting Rights Act was.

Woodward, Comer Vann. The Strange Career of Jim Crow. New York City, NY: Oxford University Press, 1955. Previous to the Civil Rights Movement, the condition of American race relations, particularly in regard to African-Americans, were very complex. Heralded Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as "the historical bible of the Civil Rights Movement", this book details the history of discrimination prevalent in the United States previous to the Civil rights Movement challenging these ideals. This book helped me understand the precursors to the Civil Rights Movement and the need for an effective voting rights law.