Location: 2nd Floor Auditorium, NYCLA 14 Vesey Street
Course ID: C10012015
Number of Sessions: 1
Credits: 2 NJ Credits: 2 General
2 NY Credits: 2 PP/LPM; Transitional & Non-Transitional
Course Description:
In honor of its 50th Anniversary, join us for a special program focusing on the Voting Rights Act of 1965. While the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibited the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on his or her "race, color, or previous condition of servitude," the resistance of states, especially in the South, to enforce the Amendment, coupled with violence and terrorist acts directed toward those who peacefully marched to enforce their rights, finally led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
Yet this did not end the story. Learn about the amendments to the law, key decisions interpreting the law and its impact on the disenfranchised. While discussing how far we have come, also understand how much more there is to do in light of recent states’ actions imposing strict voter ID requirements, limits on early voting, out-of-precinct voting and other steps which eliminate or reduce the expanded access to the polls that the law was intended to provide.
