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22 <br /> deterred more than 205 voting changes were withdrawn after the Department of Justice requested <br /> additional information. The Department of Justice brought 650 successful lawsuits under Section <br /> 2 of the Voting Right Act in covered jurisdictions. <br /> Since Shelby v. Holder, many states have adopted restrictive voting laws that impact <br /> communities of color. These restrictions such as strict photo ID requirements, limitation on who <br /> can provide assistance in polling places, the curbing on early voting days, and closing of polling <br /> places has had the effect of suppressing the votes of people of color. Other measures include <br /> purging of voter rolls and drawing election districts to dilute the power of and influence of people <br /> of color. <br /> RES-2020-051 <br /> ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS <br /> RESOLUTION <br /> Celebrating the 55t" Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act <br /> WHEREAS, on February 26, 1869, the United States Congress passed the Fifteenth <br /> Amendment to the United States Constitution and subsequently ratified the Amendment on <br /> February 3, 1870, to grant African American men the right to vote; and <br /> WHEREAS, African American males exercised the franchise and held political offices in many <br /> states, particularly Southern states, throughout the 1880s; and <br /> WHEREAS, in the 1890s, literacy tests, grandfather clauses and other devices to <br /> disenfranchise African American men were written into the constitutions of former Confederate <br /> states; and <br /> WHEREAS, with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, African American women were <br /> granted the right to vote along with white women; and <br /> WHEREAS, African Americans who attempted to register to vote experienced harassment, <br /> intimidation, economic reprisals, physical violence and murder, including by lynching; and <br /> WHEREAS, African American men and women nevertheless sought to secure their right to vote <br /> through such organizations as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People <br /> and the National Urban League, as well as through the efforts of people such as A. Philip <br /> Randolph, W. E. B. Dubois, Booker T. Washington, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker and Septima <br /> Clark; and <br /> WHEREAS, in the 196os, the widely broadcast irreprehensible violence against demonstrators <br /> brought heightened attention to the issue of voting rights — including the murders of Chaney, <br /> Goodman and Schwerner on June 21, 1964, and the attack on March 7, 1965, known as Bloody <br /> Sunday; and <br /> WHEREAS, on August 6, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, an <br /> "act to enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution," ninety-five years after it had been <br /> ratified; and <br /> WHEREAS, the Voting Rights Act outlawed literacy tests and provided for the appointment of <br /> federal examiners with the power to register qualified citizens to vote in those jurisdictions <br /> covered according to a formula provided by the statute; and <br />