“Presidents and Congresses, laws and lawsuits can open the doors to the polling places and open the doors to the wondrous rewards which await the wise use of the ballot. But only the individual Negro, and all others who have been denied the right to vote, can really walk through those doors, and can use that right, and can transform the vote into an instrument of justice and fulfillment.”

—  Lyndon B. Johnson

1960s, Voting Rights Act signing speech (1965)

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Lyndon B. Johnson 153
American politician, 36th president of the United States (i… 1908–1973

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