AUSTIN -- Thursday marked the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the landmark Voting Rights Act into law. The bill, passed to help minorities regain the vote in many parts of the country where it was being denied, was celebrated at the LBJ Library and Museum.
A tiny figure behind the podium, 93-year-old Susie Sansom Piper remembers what voting was like for her and other African-Americans before the Voting Rights Act was signed, and how they had to pay a poll tax.
"We had to pay $1.75 just so we could get a little piece of paper and we could go vote," she said. "We were as teachers, and employees of the school district, told who to vote for, who the preference was, by the powers that be."
The celebration at the LBJ Museum in Downtown Austin drew people of all ages including President Lyndon Johnson's daughter, who was 18 when she watched the historic bill signed into law.
"By an accident of birth, I was an eyewitness to an opportunity that was going to change my country forever for the better," said Luci Baines Johnson.
In 1965, there was no guarantee the bill would pass. But days after the bloody civil rights march in Selma Alabama, President Johnson had the Department of Justice draft a bill protecting voting rights for minorities across the country.
"What an incredible gift it was to my life to have stood behind my father and watch black and white, Democrat and Republican, all come together to do the right thing," Johnson said.
The bill had immediate results, especially across the South. By the end of 1965, more than 250,000 new black voters registered.
Also on this historic anniversary, the Travis County Tax Assessor office launched a voter registration challenge, with a new cell phone tool that makes registering to vote as easy as sending a text.
All you have to do is text the word "register" to the number 48683. The tool was designed by former state Sen. Joe Christie. It's goal is to make it easy for anyone, especially millennials, to get a voter registration card.