Photos From The 1960s: Black Americans Voting For the First Time

As the nation awaits results in what has turned out to be a historic election in a historic year, we look back to the elections after the Voting Rights Act.

By The New York Times

“As the polls opened this morning, more than 100 million people had already cast their ballots in mail-in votes and in-person early voting. In many cities across the South, where hundreds of polling sites have closed over the last decade and lawsuits have been filed contesting the purging of voter rolls, it meant waiting in long lines for hours….”

About 1,000 registered Black voters waited in line on May 3, 1966 in Birmingham, Ala., to cast ballots in the Democratic primary, the first major southern election after the 1965 Federal Voting Rights Act took effect. Associated Press

“It wasn’t all that long ago — just 55 years — when Black Americans could not easily vote. The Voting Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, banned the use of literacy tests and challenged the use of poll taxes, among other hindrances that had made it difficult to register.”

Today, as the nation awaits results in what has turned out to be a historic election in a historic year, we look back at the Black Americans who stood in the rain and the scorching Southern sun to cast their very first ballots and, ultimately, to finally have their voices heard.”

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