White primaries

The Fifteenth Amendment prohibited racial discrimination in voting, but in United States v. Reese (1876) the Supreme Court severely limited Congress's enforcement power, holding that the “Fifteenth Amendment does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one” (p. 217). After this, states used various methods, including literacy tests and poll taxes, to disfranchise blacks. However, these methods also prevented many whites from voting.

In 1923 Texas prohibited blacks from voting in the Democratic primary, effectively barring blacks from political participation in local and state elections in what was then a one‐party state. In Nixon v. Herndon (1927), a unanimous Supreme Court found this law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Texas legislature responded with a new law giving political party officials the power to set their own rules in primary elections. The executive committee of the Texas Democratic party immediately prohibited black participation in its primaries. In Nixon v. Condon (1932), the Court ruled, 5 to 4, that the party's executive committee was in effect a creation of the state legislature and therefore that the prohibition of black voters amounted to unconstitutional state action. The Texas Democratic party then called a state convention and on its own passed a resolution limiting participation in Democratic primaries to “white citizens.” In Grovey v. Townsend (1935), the Court unanimously upheld this version of the white primary. However, in Smith v. Allwright (1944), a Court made up almost entirely of new justices ruled, 8 to 1, that white primaries violated the Fifteenth Amendment.

See also Vote, Right to.

— Paul Finkelman

Primary election in which blacks are excluded. In the Southern states of the United States, where nomination in the Democratic primary was tantamount to election, ‘white primaries’ were used to exclude blacks from the electoral process. Declared unconstitutional in 1944.

The white primary was one of several means used by white southern politicians in the first half of the twentieth century to control black political power. By preventing blacks from voting in Democratic primaries, southern whites effectively disfranchised them, since primaries are more important than general elections in one-party states. At first southern whites set up primary-election machinery so as to exclude most blacks, but without direct reference to race. In 1923 the Texas legislature enacted a law specifically declaring blacks ineligible to participate in the state's primary elections. In Smith v. Allwright (1944) the Supreme Court ruled that since the white primary was an integral part of the election process, the Texas Democratic party's decision to exclude blacks was unconstitutional. Supplemental decisions were handed down, and by midcentury the white primary was legally abolished not only in Texas but also in all other states.

Bibliography

Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.

Payne, Charles M. I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Weisbrot, Robert. Freedom Bound: A History of America's Civil Rights Movement. New York: Norton, 1990.

A legal device once employed by some Southern states to prevent African Americans from exercising their right to vote in a meaningful way.

In the 1920s Southern states began using the white primary as a way of limiting the ability of African Americans to play a part in the political process. The white primary was an effective device because of the virtual one-party political system in the South that existed until the late 1960s. In all but a few areas nomination by the Democratic party was tantamount to election, with Republicans often not bothering to run in the general elections.

In order to keep African Americans out of the political process, the Democratic party in many states adopted a rule excluding them from party membership. The state legislatures worked in concert with the party, closing the primaries to everyone except party members. The Supreme Court had ruled in 1921, in Newberry v. United States, 256 U.S. 232, 41 S. Ct. 469, 65 L. Ed. 913, that political parties were private organizations and not part of the government election apparatus. Therefore, by means of the white primary device, African Americans were disenfranchised without official state action that would have triggered judicial review under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.

Beginning in the late 1920s the Supreme Court reviewed a series of cases involving the white primary. In Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U.S. 536, 47 S. Ct. 446, 71 L. Ed. 759 (1927), the Court ruled that the state could not formally endorse the white primary, but in Grovey v. Townsend, 295 U.S. 45, 55 S. Ct. 622, 79 L. Ed. 1292 (1935), it upheld a Texas white primary that was based solely on a resolution adopted by the state Democratic party.

In United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 61 S. Ct. 1031, 85 L. Ed. 1368 (1941), the Court ruled that the federal government could regulate party primaries to prevent voter fraud. In recognizing that primaries were part of a state's electoral scheme, it overruled the Newberry precedent and weakened the Grovey v. Townsend holding. Finally, in Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649, 64 S. Ct. 757, 88 L. Ed. 987 (1944), the Court overruled the Grovey decision and struck down the white primary as a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment's prohibition against voting discrimination based on race.

Following Smith v. Allwright, Texas Democrats established a private association from which African Americans were excluded. The members of the association held "preprimary" elections to select candidates for the Democratic primaries. The Supreme Court declared in Terry v. Adams, 345 U.S. 461, 73 S. Ct. 809, 97 L. Ed. 1152 (1953), that the preprimary device was unconstitutional, as it made the primary and general elections "perfunctory ratifiers" of the decisions made during the preprimary process.

See: Civil Rights; Civil Rights Movement; Elections; Voting.

White primaries were primary elections in the Southern States of the United States of America in which any non-White voter was prohibited from participating. White primaries were found in many Southern States after about 1890 and through the mid-1960s.^[1]

Contents 1 Establishment and significance of white primaries 2 Legal challenges 3 After Smith v. Allwright 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References and further reading

Establishment and significance of white primaries

The use of white primaries were first used by Southern Democratic Parties in the late 19th century. Since the South was virtually a one-party system with Democrats being the dominant party, exclusion from the primaries was a de facto exclusion from the decision-making process. The white primaries were made law in many states in a "selectively inclusive" system that stated that only whites may vote in the primaries.

Legal challenges

The American Civil Liberties Union had begun to challenge white primaries in the 1920s, but didn't get much traction until a 1923 Texas law was passed. The Texas law explicitly banned African-Americans from participating in Democratic Party primaries. This was the specific constitutional violation that the ACLU chose to base its main case upon.^[2]

The ACLU challenge to the Texas law was eventually heard before the Supreme Court under the title Smith v. Allwright. The Supreme Court decided in 1944 that white primaries were unconstitutional. ^[3]

After Smith v. Allwright

The ACLU success in Smith v. Allwright only specifically applied to the Texas law. However, most states ended their selectively inclusive white primaries. Tens of thousands of African-Americans registered to vote with the end of white primaries. However, many states still used many discriminatory practices including grandfather clauses, poll taxes, and literacy tests to keep African-Americans from voting.

See also

• Suffrage
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Voting Rights Act
• History of the United States Democratic Party#Civil Rights Movement
• Democratic National Convention
• Democratic National Convention of 1964
• Democratic National Convention of 1968
• Fannie Lou Hamer.

Notes

1. ^ Marshall appointed special counsel to the NAAPC
2. ^ Texas Politics - Smith v. Allwright (1944) - White Primaries
3. ^ http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/marshall/whiteprimary.html.

References and further reading

• Alilunas, Leo. "Legal Restrictions on the Negro in Politics: A Review of Negro Suffrage Policies Prior to 1915" The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Apr., 1940), pp. 153-160
• Anders, Evan. "Boss Rule and Constituent Interests: South Texas Politics during the Progressive Era" Southwestern Historical Quarterly 84 (January 1981).
• Barr, Alwyn. Reconstruction to Reform: Texas Politics, 1876-1906 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971).
• Beth, L.P. "The White Primary and the Judicial Function in the United States. The Political Quarterly Vol. 29 No. 4 (October 1958), pp. 366–377.
• GreenbPrimary in Texas (Millwood, New York: KTO Press, 1979).
• David Montejano. Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1986 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987).
• Marshall, Thurgood. "The Rise and Collapse of the 'White Democratic Primary" The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 26, No. 3; The Negro Voter in the South" (Summer, 1957), pp. 249-254.
• Overacker, Louise. "The Negro's Struggle for Participation in Primary Elections" The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Jan., 1945), pp. 54-61.
• Parker, Albert. "Dictatorship in the South." Fourth International, Vol.2 No.4, May 1941, pp.115-118.(May 1941)
• Kennedy , Stetson. Jim Crow Guide Florida Atlantic University,(Boca Raton). (March 1990) ISBN 978-0813009872

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