what was approved by the us congress in 1965?

Answer 1

Voting Rights Act

Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1965 to ensure the voting rights of African Americans. Though the Constitution's 15th Amendment (passed 1870) had guaranteed the right to vote regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” African Americans in the South faced efforts to disenfranchise them, including poll taxes and literacy tests, as late as the 1960s, when the civil rights movement focused national attention on infringements of their voting rights; Congress responded with the Voting Rights Act, which prohibited Southern states from using literacy tests to determine eligibility to vote. Later laws prohibited literacy tests in all states and made poll taxes illegal in state and local elections.

Answer 2

The Voting Rights Act.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, passed in the wake of voting demonstrations in Selma, Alabama, provided the capstone to many years' efforts to strengthen voting rights for African-Americans.

Answer 3

Thousands of bills were approved in 1965, as in every year. Which one are you thinking of?

Answer 4

Look up the Congresional Record

There were dozens of things approved.

Go big Red Go

Answer 5

I believe that was when they added the bill into law where if the President died during his term, the vice-president would finish his term as president.

Answer 6

A grand total of 234 things. You pay your moneys and you take your pick.

Answer 7

January 1965

Lyndon B. Johnson meeting with congressional leaders.
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January 4. When the second session of the 89th Congress convened on Monday, January 4, 1965, the Democrats were flying high. President Lyndon Johnson had trounced Republican Barry Goldwater in the presidential election two months before, bringing along huge Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. The Republicans lost 38 seats in the House. In the Senate, which is where my story this evening takes place, the Republicans, led by Illinois Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen, lost two seats. The president's party held a 68 to 32 majority. Democrats outnumbered Republicans in the House 295 to 140.

Voting rights demonstration in McComb, Mississippi.
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In his State of the Union address, President Johnson described his goals for the "Great Society," by the improvement of the quality of life in America "The Great Society asks not how much but how good; not only how to create wealth but how to use it; not only how fast we are going, but where we are headed. It proposes as the first test for a nation: the quality of its people."
Listen to a taped conversation between Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr. regarding voting rights injustices.
Link: Conversation
January 11. Dirksen laid out the legislative agenda for his constituents in a television broadcast. After explaining the trials of Vietnam, he continued with these words: "Now when it comes to the domestic scene, all seems to be beer and skittles, apple pie and honey, and yet it is not quite that sweet." As examples of the bitters, he enumerated the gold problem, medicare, aid to education, excise taxes, farm prices and subsidies, and the public debt - not a word about voting rights.

Photo of Meet the Press Set
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Link: Text of Interviews

January 24. Dirksen and Charles Halleck appeared on Meet the Press to discuss, among other topics, the role of the Republican Party in Congress, federal aid to education, Vietnam, and the United Nation's. Barely a word about civil rights.



February 1965
February 7. In response to an attack on U.S. ground troops in Vietnam, President Johnson ordered the bombing of North Vietnam positions, marking a significant enlargement of the U.S. role in the war.

February 21. Malcolm X, former leader of the Black Muslims, was shot and killed as he prepared to address an audience in New York City.



March 1965

SNCC leader John Lewis arrested at the Edmund Pettus Bridge
Photograph courtesy of Representative John Lewis
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Link: The Selma-to-Montgomery March

March 7. "Bloody Sunday." Close to 200 state troopers attacked 525 civil rights demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, as demonstrators prepared to begin a march to Montgomery to protest voting rights discrimination. After President Johnson federalized the state National Guard and sent another 2,200 troops to protect the marchers, the walk began on March 21, with over 3,000 participating.
March 8. U.S. Marines landed in Vietnam. The two battalions were the first U.S. combat forces in that country. Some 23,000 U.S. personnel already served in Vietnam as military advisers.
Information about Reeb and Martin Luther King's eulogy.
Link: Eulogy
March 11. The Reverend James J. Reeb of Boston died in Selma following a beating. Two other white Unitarian ministers were injured in the attack.
Link: Text of President Johnson's speech
March 15. President Johnson went before a special, televised joint session of Congress to urge swift enactment of voting rights legislation.

Audio from African Americans recalling their difficulties in voting.
Link: Audio
March 17. President Johnson submitted a voting rights bill to Congress.
March 18. The president's proposals were embodied in S 1564, which was introduced by 66 co-sponsors. In voting to send the bill to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Senate added the instruction that the committee report the bill no later than April 9. Subcommittee No. 5 of the House Judiciary Committee was called into session to consider the bill (HR 6400) as well.
A report from presidential aide Joseph Califano to President Johnson on the progress of the march to Montgomery.
Link 1: Report

Link 2: Report


Link: Memo

March 21. Civil rights demonstrators began their march to Montgomery, Alabama.

The Selma-to-Montgomery March for voting rights ended three weeks--and three events--that represented the political and emotional peak of the modern civil rights movement. On "Bloody Sunday," March 7, 1965, some 600 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma on U.S. Route 80. They got only as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge six blocks away, where state and local lawmen attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas and drove them back into Selma. Two days later on March 9, Martin Luther King, Jr., led a "symbolic" march to the bridge. Then civil rights leaders sought court protection for a third, full-scale march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery. Federal District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., weighed the right of mobility against the right to march and ruled in favor of the demonstrators. "The law is clear that the right to petition one's government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in large groups...," said Judge Johnson, "and these rights may be exercised by marching, even along public highways." On Sunday, March 21, about 3,200 marchers set out for Montgomery, walking 12 miles a day and sleeping in fields. By the time they reached the capitol on Thursday, March 25, they were 25,000-strong. Less than five months after the last of the three marches, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965--the best possible redress of grievances.



April 1965

Link: List of civil rights measures supported by Dirksen
April 9. The Senate Judiciary Committee reported out a bill that was substantially stronger than what the administration had requested. The major change was the addition of a ban on the use of poll taxes in state and local elections. One major limitation, proposed by Senate Minority Leader Dirksen, was written into the bill, however. It allowed states with literacy tests and low vote turnout in 1964 to exempt themselves from coverage if less than 20 percent of the population was "non-white," or by proving in court that at least 60 percent of their voting-age residents were registered.
On the House side, the subcommittee approved an amended version of HR 6400 and voted 10-1 to send the measure to the full Judiciary Committee.
April 22. Senate debate on the bill began.
April 28. President Johnson sent the first contingent of Marines to the Dominican Republic to protect Americans during a civil war. To avert a rebel victory over a U.S.-backed government, the president will send 20,000 troops.
April 29. Francis Keppel, the U.S. Commissioner of Education, announced that all public schools were to desegregate by the fall of 1967. The announcement was based on the 1964 Civil Rights Act barring federal aid to schools practicing racial discrimination.



May 1965
May 9. The government announced the total U.S. fighting forces in Vietnam was 42,400 men. Deployment of another 21,000 U.S. soldiers will be announced on June 26.
May 11. An effort by Senate liberals to impose a flat ban on the use of poll taxes as a requirement for voting failed by a narrow 45-49 roll-call vote. This action removed the main obstacle to Senate action.

May 12. The House Judiciary Committee approved HR 6400, with additional amendments, by voice vote, and it went to the Rules Committee where it stalled for three weeks.
May 21. A petition for cloture motion was filed in the Senate. It was signed by 29 Democrats and 9 Republicans-16 signatures were needed.

Pro-civil rights senators celebrate cloture victory.
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May 25. The Senate adopted a debate-limiting cloture motion by a 70-30 roll-call vote, setting the stage for passage the following day. Approval of the cloture motion marked only the second time in history -- but the second time in two years -- that the Senate had voted to close off debate of a civil rights issue.
May 26. The Senate passed S 1564 on a 77-19 vote. Voting for passage was a coalition of 30 Republicans and 47 Democrats. Two Republicans and 17 southern Democrats opposed passage.



June 1965
June 1. HR 6400 was reported to the House floor, but there were five weeks of delay before debate actually began as House Rules Committee Chair Howard Smith held up action.



July 1965
July 6. House debate began. As floor manager for HR 6400, Emanuel Celler opened debate and said the measure would eliminate the "legal dodges and subterfuges" possible under existing legislation. He called the bill "impervious to all legal trickery and evasion." Rules Committee Chair Smith, a leading opponent of civil rights legislation, said the bill was an "unconstitutional" vendetta against the former Confederate states, that it was "dripping in venom," and that its effect was to make of the Attorney General a "czar" with "almost unlimited power to investigate, to prosecute and to try and convict sovereign states…."
July 9. In a roll call vote on passage, the House approved HR 6400 by a vote of 333-85, after beating back one attempt to substitute a bill which dropped the poll-tax ban. Voting for passage were 112 Republicans and 221 Democrats. Three southern Republicans and 33 southern Democrats voted in opposition.