Smith v. Allwright
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Smith v. Allwright | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
||||||||||
| Reargued January 12, 1944 Decided April 3, 1944 |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
| Holding | ||||||||||
| Primary elections must be open to voters of all races. | ||||||||||
| Court membership | ||||||||||
| Chief Justice: Harlan Fiske Stone Associate Justices: Owen Josephus Roberts, Hugo Black, Stanley Forman Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, Robert H. Jackson, Wiley Blount Rutledge |
||||||||||
| Case opinions | ||||||||||
| Majority by: Reed Joined by: Stone, Black, Douglas, Murphy, Jackson, Rutledge Concurrence by: Frankfurter (in the judgement of the court only) Dissent by: Roberts |
Smith v. Allwright , 321 U.S. 649 (1944), was an important decision of the United States Supreme Court with regard to voting rights and, by extension, racial desegregation. It overturned the Democratic Party's use of all-white primaries in Texas, and other states where the party used the rule.
Contents |
[edit] Background
Lonnie E. Smith, a black voter in Harris County, Texas, sued for the right to vote in a primary election being conducted by the Democratic Party. The law he challenged allowed the party to enforce a rule requiring all voters in its primary to be white. Because the Democratic Party had controlled politics in the South since the late 19th century, most Southern elections were decided by the outcome of the Democratic primary. Representing the NAACP, Thurgood Marshall argued this case in favor of Lonnie E. Smith.
[edit] Issue
Texas claimed that the Democratic Party was a private organization that could set its own rules of membership. Smith argued that the law in question essentially disfranchised him by denying him the ability to vote in what was the only meaningful election in his jurisdiction.
[edit] The Decision
The Court agreed that the restricted primary denied Smith his protection under the law and found in his favor.
[edit] The Aftermath
Some observers believed the Court's ruling in this case helped prepare for its later ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), in terms of looking at the effect of a practice or law.
