In 1965, the United States Congress voted overwhelmingly in favor of President Lyndon Johnson’s Voting Rights Act. Although most southern states opposed this legislation, the House of Representatives passed the bill by a 333-48 margin with the Senate registering a 77-19 count. While the initial emphasis of this legislation was to empower the federal government with the right to register minority voters whom states had denied suffrage, the overarching aim would eventually be to provide for equal representation of all races. Even in the deep South, where opposition to the Voting Rights Act was strongest, the balance of power has been shifted to reflect a better pattern of ethnic representation. The chart below depicts the number of black Congressman from 1868 to 1992 and shows that there is a clear effect brought about the passage of this legislation in 1965.

Source: Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Voting Section

From the chart, it is obvious that blacks have made significant gains since 1964 when there were none in Congress. But what is the impact of the Voting Rights Act in Florida, and, in particular in Florida’s countie

of School Board Members Expected Number

Gadsden County was the focus of a suit brought on by the NAACP. The suit, NAACP v. Gadsden County School Board, 691 F.2d 978, 983 (11th Cir. 1982)(10), forced the County to change its method to single member districts from the at-large method that was in use at that time. This case was brought in the same time frame of the 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act.

Some topics in this essay:
Miami-Dade Duval, School Board, County Commission, Rights Act, Miami-Dade Duvall, House Representatives1, House Representatives, Miami-Dade Gadsden, Gadsden County, County Mayor, single districts, school board, county commission, gadsden county, voting rights act, black population, voting rights, rights act, 2000 census, black commissioners, florida counties, county school board, florida legislature 2000, economic demographic research, change single districts,