Voting Act Expiration Stirs Debate, Officials Question Relevance; Rumors Circulate That Blacks Will Lose Voting Rights

Summary

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NEW YORK - On what would become known as "Bloody Sunday," voting rights marchers in March 1965 reached the highest point on the Edmund Pettus Bridge near Selma, Ala., and saw a blue sea of uniforms awaiting them at the end of the bridge.

Television would show images of Alabama state troopers armed with guns, night sticks, bull whips and tear gas severely beating marchers. Days later, President Lyndon Johnson promised to bring Congress an effective voting rights bill, and that August he signed into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965, considered one of the most significant laws in the nation's history.

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Extract

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Voting Act Expiration Stirs Debate, Officials Question Relevance; Rumors Circulate That Blacks Will Lose Voting Rights

Now, more than four decades later, sections of the act are set to expire. The looming expiration date - Aug. 6, 2007 - has ignited debate over the provisions' effe...

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