Deuel Ross has written this fascinating article for the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. Here is the abstract:

Voting is an act of faith. Faith that your vote will matter. Faith that your vote will make a difference. Faith in our democracy. In the years surrounding the 1965 passage of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), Black Americans had little reason to have such faith. Our streets and campuses were filled with protests in support of racial justice and opposition to faraway wars. An unpopular president had declined to seek reelection. He was replaced on the ticket by his vice president who went on to face both a “law and order” candidate and a populist promising to make America “stand up” again. All while Black people lagged far behind whites in voter registration, voter turnout, and elected representation in government. In response to the “cries of pain and the hymns and protests” of Black people, Congress enacted the VRA to offer the country a “cause for hope and for faith in our democracy.” As enacted, the VRA contained a “complex scheme of stringent remedies” that included Section 2, which barred racial discrimination in voting nationwide, and Section 5, which required states or other places with a history of discrimination to seek “preclearance” from the federal government before changing any laws or rules related to voting.