The Voting Rights Act of 1965 opened elective offices to blacks in the US South,
but systematic evidence on its immediate effects remains scant. Using a novel data-set
on black elected officials between 1964-1980, we assess the causal impact of the VRA
on the racial make-up of local governments. Since the VRA mandated federal scrutiny
(coverage) over a group of Southern counties, we deploy a differences-in-differences
estimation strategy using non-covered counties as a comparison group. Our results
show that coverage doubled the extent to which black enfranchisement led to gains in
black office-holding, particularly among bodies controlling local public finances.