Two Mississippi Museums observes 60th anniversary of 1965 Voting Rights Act

JANS – The Two Mississippi Museums sponsored special programming August 6, 2025, to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

A gallery talk with former state Sen. David Jordan in the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum was followed by a “History Is Lunch” program in the Craig H. Neilsen Auditorium with Leslie-Burl McLemore, civil rights veteran and professor emeritus of political science at Jackson State University, and historians Jeff Kolnick, history professor at Southwest Minnesota State University, and Michelle Deardorff, professor of government and department head at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. 

The panel explored the struggle for voting rights in Mississippi, the state’s role in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the implications of the Shelby v. Holder decision by the United States Supreme Court in 2013. 

The discussion was followed by a flash tour of the facility highlighting the efforts of Mississippi civil rights activists to secure federal protections for Black citizens’ right to vote.

Signed into law Aug. 6, 1965, the Voting Rights Act outlawed discriminatory practices – such as literacy tests and poll taxes – that had long suppressed the Black vote, especially across the South. The act was a direct result of sustained activism and sacrifice, and its passage marked a turning point in the modern Civil Rights Movement.