It was signed by LBJ (Lyndon B. Johnson) and it was made to allow African Americans and other minorities have the ability to actually exercise their right to vote from the then 95 year old 15th Amendment that gave every race the right to vote.
This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting.