(Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to review a legal challenge to the Voting Rights Act, a landmark law adopted in 1965 to protect African-American voters who had faced decades of discrimination at the polls.

The high court accepted an appeal brought by Shelby County, Alabama, challenging a core provision of the act that requires nine states and several local governments with a history of bias to get federal permission to change their election procedures.

(Reporting by Terry Baynes and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Jackie Frank)