AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY MOMENT March 7, 1927: A Texas law that - TopicsExpress



          

AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY MOMENT March 7, 1927: A Texas law that banned Negroes from voting was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U.S. 536 (1927), was a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court struck down a 1923 Texas law that forbade blacks from voting in the Texas Democratic primary. Due to the limited amount of Republican Party activity in Texas at the time following the suppression of black voting through poll taxes, the Democratic Party primary was essentially the only competitive process and chance to choose among candidates. BACKGROUND: In 1902 the Texas legislature passed a requirement for a poll tax, which resulted in suppressed voting by blacks and Mexican Americans. As voter participation declined among these groups, the Democratic Party became more dominant. Dr. L.A. Nixon, a black physician in El Paso, sought to vote in the Democratic Party primary of 1924 in El Paso, Texas. The defendants, who were magistrates in charge of elections, prevented him from doing so on the basis of a 1923 Texas statute which provided that in no event shall a negro be eligible to participate in a Democratic party primary election held in the State of Texas. Nixon sought an injunction against the statute in federal district court. The district court dismissed the suit, and Nixon appealed to the Supreme Court. RULING: On March 7, 1927, the unanimous Court, speaking through Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, rejected the argument that the political question doctrine barred the Court from deciding the case. The argument, said the Court, was little more than a play upon words. While the injury which the plaintiff alleged involved political action, his suit allege[d] and s[ought] to recover for private damage. The Court then turned to the merits of the suit. It said that it was unnecessary to discuss whether the statute violated the Fifteenth Amendment, because it seems to us hard to imagine a more direct and obvious infringement of the Fourteenth. The Court continued: The [Fourteenth Amendment] ... was passed, as we know, with a special intent to protect the blacks from discrimination against them. ... The statute of Texas ... assumes to forbid negroes to take part in a primary election the importance of which we have indicated, discriminating against them by the distinction of color alone. States may do a good deal of classifying that it is difficult to believe rational, but there are limits, and it is too clear for extended argument that color cannot be made the basis of a statutory classification affecting the right set up in this case.. The Court reversed the district courts dismissal of the suit. AFTERMATH: Texas quickly enacted a new provision to continue restrictions on voter participation, granting authority to political parties to determine who should vote in their primaries. Within four months the Executive Committee of the Democratic Party passed a resolution that all white Democrats ... and none other be allowed to participate in the approaching primary of 1927. Five years later, Dr. Nixon reappeared before the Supreme Court in another suit, Nixon v. Condon (1932), against the all-white primary. It ruled against the state, which passed another variation authorizing a white primary. It was not until Smith v. Allwright (1944) that the Supreme Court finally and decisively prohibited the white primary.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 04:03:03 +0000

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