The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited racial discrimination in voting by protecting voting rights. It banned poll taxes and literacy tests and required states with historians of Jim Crow discrimination to seek advance clearance before changing and requiring states with histories of Jim Crow discrimination to obtain advance clearance to change laws governing voting.
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Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) became the first openly LGBT senator in 2012.
Explore the votes of America's longest-serving Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn, who presided over key civil rights votes
Buried dozens of pages into the Defense Appropriations Act of 2010 was the first and only congressional apology to Native peoples.
