Who was the chief proponent of the Voting Rights Act?
President Lyndon B. Johnson requested that Congress enact the 1965 VRA. One week after Bloody Sunday in Selma, President Johnson proclaimed: “Every American citizen must have an equal vote.” Six weeks later, President Johnson said: “At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape man’s unending search for freedom . . . . So it was . . . in Selma, Alabama.” Using the full weight of the presidency, Johnson persuaded the Democrat-controlled Congress that the time was right for a comprehensive voting rights law to eliminate the remaining obstacles to voting for blacks.
