President Barack Obama commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) on Thursday by stressing the need to protect the fundamental right to vote and combat voter ID laws that that discourage "certain kinds of folks" from voting.

Obama delivered a speech at the White House hailing the VRA while standing alongside Loretta Lynch, the first female African-American U.S. attorney general, and civil-rights-leader-turned-Congressman John Lewis. During his address, Obama praised the leaders and activists of the Civil Rights Era who pushed President Lyndon B. Johnson to sign the VRA into law in 1965, marking the end of discriminatory practices that strategically prevented people of color from voting.

The nation's first African-American president also condemned new age voter ID laws, arguing they disproportionately hurt minorities and working class Americans from voting.

"In practice, we've still got problems," said the president, referring to state laws that limit early voting and require voters to show identification before casting ballots, reports The New York Times. According to Obama, these laws "have a disproportional effect on certain kinds of folks voting."

"On the ground, there are still too many ways in which people are discouraged from voting," said the president. "In theory, everybody's in favor of the right to vote; in practice, we have state legislatures that are deliberately trying to make it harder for people to vote."

Obama went on to criticize the Supreme Court for striking down a key part of the VRA, which required states with histories of racial discrimination to obtain federal clearance before changing their election laws. He then urged Congress to restore key elements of the historic law.

"One order of business is for our Congress to pass an updated version of the Voting Rights Act that would correct some of the problems that have arisen," Obama said, according to MSNBC. "At the state and local levels, we've got to fight back against efforts to make it harder to vote," he added.

His comments came a day after a federal appeals panel declared that a strict voter identification law in Texas violated the VRA by discriminating against blacks and Latinos.

Furthermore, Obama went on to proclaim Sept. 22, as National Voter Registration Day, where different groups will mobilize to get as many people as possible to sign up to vote.