HOUSTON — On this day in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.
The landmark piece of federal legislation prohibited racial discrimination in voting. And on Friday, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and other community leaders marked the anniversary with the unveiling of a monument dedicated to our 36th president.
The statue sits in the park space adjacent to the federal courthouse on Bagby Street at Rusk.
In attendance at the unveiling was LBJ’s daughters, Luci Baines Johnson and Lynda Bird Robb. Luci Baines Johnson spoke at the dedication Friday. You can see that video in the window above.
“My father signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act on my 17th birthday, eradicating legalized apartheid in our country,” said Luci Baines Johnson at the dedication. “No one has ever gotten abettor birthday present than that. At 56 years old, 56 years ago, this very day, I was there when my father signed the Voting Rights Act into law, making it possible to vote regardless of the color of their skin, regardless of their ethnicities and regardless of their incomes.”