Soon after passage of the Voting Rights Act, federal examiners were conducting voter registration, and black voter registration began a sharp increase. The cumulative effect of the Supreme Court's decisions, Congress' enactment of voting rights legislation, and the ongoing efforts of concerned private citizens and the Department of Justice, has been to restore the right to vote guaranteed by the 14th and 15th Amendments. The Voting Rights Act itself has been called the single most effective piece of civil rights legislation ever passed by Congress.
The following table compares black voter registration rates with white voter registration rates in seven Southern States in 1965 and 1988:
| March 1965 | November 1988 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Black | White | Gap | Black | White | Gap | |
| Alabama | 19.3 | 69.2 | 49.9 | 68.4 | 75.0 | 6.6 |
| Georgia | 27.4 | 62.6 | 35.2 | 56.8 | 63.9 | 7.1 |
| Louisiana | 31.6 | 80.5 | 48.9 | 77.1 | 75.1 | -2.0 |
| Mississippi | 6.7 | 69.9 | 63.2 | 74.2 | 80.5 | 6.3 |
| North Carolina | 46.8 | 96.8 | 50.0 | 58.2 | 65.6 | 7.4 |
| South Carolina | 37.3 | 75.7 | 38.4 | 56.7 | 61.8 | 5.1 |
| Virginia | 38.3 | 61.1 | 22.8 | 63.8 | 68.5 | 4.7 |
Adapted from Bernard Grofman, Lisa Handley and Richard G. Niemi. 1992. Minority Representation and the Quest for Voting Equality. New York: Cambridge Press, at 23-24/
Last Revised - March 28, 2005