New York Times Magazine chief political correspondent Jim Rutenberg discusses the 50-year campaign to roll back the Voting Rights Act. Signed on Aug. 6, 1965, the Voting Rights Act was meant to correct “a clear and simple wrong,” as Lyndon Johnson said, ensuring black Americans the right to vote. But from the moment the Voting Rights Act became law, a largely Republican countermovement of ideologues and partisan operatives set out to undercut or dismantle its most important requirements. Rutenberg’s article “A Dream Undone” appeared in The New York Times Magazine July 28.