Editing Lyndon B. Johnson (section)

===Voting Rights Act===
{{Main|Voting Rights Act of 1965}}
[[File:Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr. - Voting Rights Act.jpg|thumb|alt=refer to caption|President Lyndon B. Johnson, [[Martin Luther King Jr.]], and [[Rosa Parks]] at the signing of the [[Voting Rights Act]] on August 6, 1965]]
Soon after the 1964 election, civil rights organizations such as the [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference]] (SCLC) and the [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]] (SNCC) began a push for federal action to protect the voting rights of racial minorities.<ref name=eyes>{{cite book|last=Williams|first=Juan|title=Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965|year=2002|publisher=Penguin Books|location=New York, NY|page=[https://archive.org/details/eyesonprizeameri00will/page/253 253]|isbn=0-14-009653-1|url=https://archive.org/details/eyesonprizeameri00will/page/253}}</ref> On March 7, 1965, these organizations began the [[Selma to Montgomery marches]] in which Selma residents proceeded to march to Alabama's capital, [[Montgomery, Alabama|Montgomery]], to highlight voting rights issues and present Governor [[George Wallace]] with their grievances. On the first march, demonstrators were stopped by state and county police, who shot [[tear gas]] into the crowd and trampled protesters. Televised footage of the scene, which became known as "Bloody Sunday", generated outrage across the country.<ref name=GaryMay2015>{{cite web| title="The American Promise" — LBJ's Finest Hour| date=March 6, 2015| first=Gary| last=May| website=BillMoyers.com| url=http://billmoyers.com/2015/03/06/american-promise-lbjs-finest-hour/| access-date=August 11, 2017}}</ref> In response to the rapidly increasing political pressure upon him, Johnson decided to immediately send voting rights legislation to Congress, and to address the American people in a speech before a [[Joint session of the United States Congress|Joint session of Congress]]. He began:

{{Blockquote|I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy. I urge every member of both parties, Americans of all religions and of all colors, from every section of this country, to join me in that cause. ... Rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, or our welfare or our security, but rather to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved nation. The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue. And should we defeat every enemy, and should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation. For, with a country as with a person, 'what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'<ref name=GaryMay2015/><ref name="Dallek (1998), p.218">Dallek (1998), p. 218.</ref>}}

Johnson and Dirksen established a strong bipartisan alliance in favor of the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]], precluding the possibility of a Senate filibuster defeating the bill. In August 1965, the House approved the bill by a vote of 333 to 85, and Senate passed the bill by a vote of 79 to 18.<ref>Mackenzie and Weisbrot (2008), pp. 175–176</ref> The landmark legislation outlawed discrimination in voting, thus allowing millions of Southern blacks to vote for the first time. The results were significant; between the years of 1968 and 1980, the number of Southern black elected state and federal officeholders nearly doubled.<ref name="Dallek (1998), p.218"/> In Mississippi, the voter registration rate of African Americans rose from 6.7 percent to 59.8 percent between 1964 and 1967, a reflection of a broader increase in African-American voter registration rates.<ref>Zelizer (2015), p. 228.</ref>

After the murder of civil rights worker [[Viola Liuzzo]], Johnson went on television to announce the arrest of four [[Ku Klux Klan]]s men implicated in her death. He angrily denounced the Klan as a "hooded society of bigots," and warned them to "return to a decent society before it's too late". Johnson was the first president to arrest and prosecute members of the Klan since [[Ulysses S. Grant]].{{efn|President Grant, on October 17, 1871, suspended [[habeas corpus]] in nine [[South Carolina]] counties, sent in troops, and prosecuted the Klan in the federal district court.}}<ref>McFeely (2002), ''Grant: A Biography'', pp. 369–371.</ref> He turned to themes of Christian redemption to push for civil rights, mobilizing support from churches.<ref>{{harvp|Woods|2006|pp=759–787}}</ref> At the [[Howard University]] commencement address on June 4, 1965, he said that both the government and the nation needed to help achieve these goals: "To shatter forever not only the barriers of law and public practice but the walls which bound the condition of many by the color of his skin. To dissolve, as best we can, the antique enmities of the heart which diminish the holder, divide the great democracy, and do wrong {{mdashb}} great wrong {{mdashb}} to the children of God ..."<ref>''Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965.'' Volume II, entry 301, pp. 635–640. (1966)</ref>