III. Description of the Artifact and It's Significance
According to a summary of the sale of the pen on the Seth Kallar, Inc Historic Documents and Legacy Collections website at http://www.sethkaller.net/catalogs/47-historical/239-1965-voting-rights-act-pen-lyndon-johnson :"With the mark of this pen, and a touching rhetorical flourish, Lyndon Johnson signed a historic law empowering the Justice Department to send federal officials to supervise voter registration—the first federal intervention in Southern state electoral affairs since the 1870s. The act outlawed educational requirements for voting in states or counties where fewer than 50 percent of voting-age residents were registered or had voted in 1964. Section 9 of the act also banned changes to future voting laws without a “preclearance” check by a U.S. District Court or the Attorney General to ensure that the proposed change would not impinge the ability of minorities to register. Johnson symbolically chose to sign the Voting Rights Bill in the President’s Room, just off the Senate chamber, where Abraham Lincoln had signed legislation freeing slaves employed by the Confederacy on August 6, 1861. Moments later, in a ceremony broadcast nationwide from the Capitol Rotunda, Johnson acknowledged that the vast majority of Africans “came in chains” to this country. “And today we strike away the last major shackle of those fierce and ancient bonds. Today the Negro story and the American story fuse and blend.” Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach immediately dispatched officials to register voters in nine southern counties. As a result, African-American voter registration surged by over 250,000 within a year of this bill’s passage."
IV. Date and Place (Go to the Timeline and enter in this information as well as here!)
6 August 1965 in Captiol building in Washington DC
(Place all URLs underneath the image, video, etc.)
I. Artifact Name
Pen Used to Sign Voting Rights Act
II. Image
III. Description of the Artifact and It's Significance
According to a summary of the sale of the pen on the Seth Kallar, Inc Historic Documents and Legacy Collections website at http://www.sethkaller.net/catalogs/47-historical/239-1965-voting-rights-act-pen-lyndon-johnson :"With the mark of this pen, and a touching rhetorical flourish, Lyndon Johnson signed a historic law empowering the Justice Department to send federal officials to supervise voter registration—the first federal intervention in Southern state electoral affairs since the 1870s. The act outlawed educational requirements for voting in states or counties where fewer than 50 percent of voting-age residents were registered or had voted in 1964. Section 9 of the act also banned changes to future voting laws without a “preclearance” check by a U.S. District Court or the Attorney General to ensure that the proposed change would not impinge the ability of minorities to register.Johnson symbolically chose to sign the Voting Rights Bill in the President’s Room, just off the Senate chamber, where Abraham Lincoln had signed legislation freeing slaves employed by the Confederacy on August 6, 1861. Moments later, in a ceremony broadcast nationwide from the Capitol Rotunda, Johnson acknowledged that the vast majority of Africans “came in chains” to this country. “And today we strike away the last major shackle of those fierce and ancient bonds. Today the Negro story and the American story fuse and blend.” Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach immediately dispatched officials to register voters in nine southern counties. As a result, African-American voter registration surged by over 250,000 within a year of this bill’s passage."
IV. Date and Place (Go to the Timeline and enter in this information as well as here!)
6 August 1965 in Captiol building in Washington DC
V. Multimedia Found on the Internet
VI. Curators (First Name, Last Initial)
Tim T & Kara T