“At times, history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom.”

President Lyndon Johnson, March 15, 1965 speech on African American voting discrimination and subsequent protests in Alabama

“providing his margin of victory“

VANN R. NEWKIRK II

The Atlantic: African American Voters Made Doug Jones a U.S. Senator in Alabama

President Lyndon B Johnson discusses the Voting Rights Act with civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King Jr.

“keep them from ever registering to vote”

In this eloquent speech to the full Congress, President Lyndon B. Johnson used the phrase “we shall overcome,” borrowed from African American leaders struggling for equal rights.

The speech was made on Monday, March 15, 1965, a week after deadly racial violence had erupted in Selma, Alabama, as African Americans were attacked by police while preparing to march to Montgomery to protest voting rights discrimination.

That discrimination took the form of literacy, knowledge or character tests administered solely to African Americans to keep them from ever registering to vote.

Source: Complete Speech

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