![LyndonJohnson_signs_Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965[1]](https://madisondems.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/lyndonjohnson_signs_voting_rights_act_of_19651.jpg?w=604)
Fifty years ago, the Voting Rights Act outlawed literacy tests and other measures that had prevented African-Americans from voting. After its passage, Congress amended the act four times to increase its scope.
But in 2013, a Supreme Court decision blocked the act’s enforcement provision, which opened the door for states to pass new voting restrictions. Journalist Ari Berman says that many of the new restrictions discriminate against poor people, young people and people of color.
http://www.npr.org/2015/08/10/431238980/block-the-vote-a-journalist-discusses-voting-rights-and-restrictions