Dianne Feinstein: “the right of a citizen to vote is the most basic right in any democracy. At the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965…”

“the right of a citizen to vote is the most basic right in any democracy. At the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 in this very Capitol Rotunda, the President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson, said these words: The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a critical breakthrough in the struggle for civil rights. However, the Voting Rights Act, which came the next year, 1965, is considered the most important and successful civil rights law of the 20th century, because it finally ensured every voting-age citizen of this Nation a voice in his or her own fate. The passage of the 14th amendment in 1868 and the passage of the 15th amendment in 1870 both prohibited disenfranchisement on the basis of race. But in the absence of legislative protection for the right to vote, that right was systematically denied to millions of African Americans for nearly a century. Similarly, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Alaskan Natives were excluded from the ballot box through an assortment of voting tests and intimidation. We are all here today because of the courage and persistence of the civil rights leaders of the last century, who fought so long and hard to attain the franchise the Constitution had already granted them.…”