While school integration has dominated the race relations arena for nearly a year, another crucial questionfederal policy on voting rights for blacks has been quietly moving toward a climax. At issue is whether the 1965 statute that allowed some 800,000 Southern blacks to exercise the franchise will survive intact. Last week defenders of the Voting Rights Act won a significant victory in the Senate.
One of the most successful pieces of civil rights legislation passed in the 1960s, the law expires August 6. Black leaders and congressional liberals wanted to extend the provisions that now affect seven Southern states.* Literacy tests...
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