Civil Rights Movement Effects

The Lasting Effects of the March That Changed Many

From the establishment of the country to today’s times, African Americans have experienced a considerable amount of discrimination. From slavery to discriminatory Voting Laws to the current events between blacks and others, African Americans have put together efforts to relieve their situations. These efforts include the Underground Railroad, the Civil Rights Movement, and the current Black Lives Matter movement. It is unknown what specific event started the Civil Rights Movement, but it is most often referred to between the 1950s and 1960s. The Civil Rights movement led to many improvements, including the passing of the Voting Acts Law. African Americans never fully received their rights

A small but not insignificant impact of the civil rights movement was through the life of Viola Liuzzo. A white female from Michigan who was a supporter of the march died from a gunshot after the end of the march. Driving people back to Selma, she was found with an African American male in her car and was shot by a member of the Ku Klux Klan (“Viola Liuzzo”). This made her the first white woman killed in the American civil right movement. Her death may seem insignificant to some, but because one of her killers was a FBI informant, the government changed the laws. Ultimately, her death led to the strengthening of the Freedom of Information Act, which now aids people in justice

President Lyndon B. Johnson enacted the law calling federal legislation due to the March. This document was successful in changing who was able to vote. The document required that “no voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed” on the person’s right to vote. Important to the people was the assurance “that the right of citizens of the United States to vote is not denied or abridged on account of race or color, no citizen shall be denied the right to vote in any Federal, State, or local election because of his failure to comply with any test or device in any State”( “Voting Rights Act of 1965”). Together these assured that no African American or person of color would ever be denied the right to vote or to register to vote because they could not pass certain tests. One of these tests was a literacy test designed to make sure that the blacks could not pass. In fact, this test was so difficult that not even whites could pass it. However, because of the laws, whites did not have to take and automatically received the right to