Timeline & Context: The Voting Rights Act (VRA)

Pre‑1965 Roots & Antecedents

1789 / Early Republic: Voting qualifications left to states; many restricted voting to white male property owners.
1865–1870: 15th Amendment ratified to prohibit voting discrimination by race; Southern states soon undermined it with poll taxes and literacy tests.
1896 onward: Grandfather clauses and similar tools drastically reduced Black voter registration in the South.
1950s–1960s: Civil rights movement and legal activism (e.g., Selma marches) intensified calls for federal voting protections.

August 6, 1965: President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act (VRA).
1966: Supreme Court upheld the VRA in South Carolina v. Katzenbach.

Section 4: Created a coverage formula identifying jurisdictions with histories of discrimination.
Section 5: Required preclearance of voting changes in covered areas.
Section 2: Prohibits discriminatory voting practices nationwide (still active).

June 2013: Supreme Court invalidated Section 4(b) coverage formula, disabling Section 5 preclearance.
Post‑Shelby: States previously covered enacted new voting restrictions; litigation under Section 2 increased.

2021 – Brnovich v. DNC: Court narrowed standards for Section 2 cases.
2025 – Louisiana Redistricting: Supreme Court reviewing whether race-conscious redistricting violates Constitution under current VRA interpretation.

Some states passed state-level VRAs to maintain protections.
Others imposed new voting restrictions under the loosened federal framework.
The VRA remains vital but weakened; its future may depend on ongoing and future Supreme Court rulings.