Between 1890 and 1944, Southern states held white primaries, in which only white voters could participate. The ACLU protested against this discrimination, leading to a Supreme Court ruling in 1944 that overturned the practice. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed all forms of discrimination against women and black people.
In modern times, anyone who meets the age and residency criteria and is registered can vote for elected officials in their local and federal offices in the United States. However, that wasn’t always the case. Between 1890 and 1944, the Southern states held special elections called white primaries. White primaries were a type of election in which only white voters could vote; non-white voters were not allowed.
Democratic parties in the Southern states were the first to hold white primary elections in the 19th century. Since, for all intents and purposes, Southern states had one party – the Democrats – excluding non-whites from voting in white primary elections also meant they were barred from making important decisions about government. Some states even wrote restrictive white primary elections into law, directly stating that they were “selectively inclusive.”
In 1923, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) began to see violations selectively presented in elections. As a result, they started protesting, attempting to challenge the reasoning and restriction behind them. In 1923, Texas passed a law explicitly forbidding African-American citizens from voting in the Democratic primary. This case became the basis upon which the ACLU began to focus its major protests.
The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1935 that holding white primaries was within the constitutional rights of states. Nine years later, however, the ruling was overturned once judges ruled that the rights of non-white voters had been violated by the isolated election. A dissenting justice recalled Smith v. Allwright, a case that overturned racial desegregation, particularly within the ballot box.
All major forms of discrimination against women and black people, which included racial segregation, were outlawed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Essentially, this act ended statutory racial segregation in the workplace, schools, and facilities that serve the general public. It also prevented states from unequally setting voters and their questions. That doesn’t mean that discrimination and segregation are over, however, just that they were no longer legal. In an effort to ensure that all parts of the legislation would be complied with, Congress affirmed its right to pass legislation in different parts of the Constitution, such as the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, along with Article One.
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