Smith v. Allwright - Significance, Reconstruction, A Foot In The Door, A Final Test, An End To State-sponsored Political Discrimination

court petitioner party united

Petitioner

Lonnie E. Smith

Respondent

S. S. Allwright, election judge, et al.

Petitioner's Claim

That rules of the Texas Democratic Party which barred African Americans from participation in primary elections violated his constitutional rights.

Chief Lawyers for Petitioner

Thurgood Marshall and William H. Hastie

Chief Lawyer for Respondent

George W. Barcus

Justices for the Court

Hugo Lafayette Black, William O. Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, Robert H. Jackson, Frank Murphy, Stanley Forman Reed (writing for the Court), Wiley Blount Rutledge, Harlan Fiske Stone

Justices Dissenting

Owen Josephus Roberts

Place

Washington, D.C.

Date of Decision

3 April 1944

Decision

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the petitioner's claim and overturned two lower court decisions to hold that the Texas Democratic Party owed Smith $5000 in compensatory damages, and that the party could no longer exclude African Americans from participation in its primary elections.

Related Cases

Newberry v. United States, 256 U.S. 232 (1921).
Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U.S. 536 (1927).
Nixon v. Condon, 286 U.S. 73 (1932).
Grovey v. Townsend, 295 U.S. 45 (1935).
United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299 (1941).

Sources

Hall, Kermit L., ed. The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Additional Topics

Smith v. Allwright - Reconstruction

In the years immediately following the Civil War, newly freed African Americans wielded immense political power in the southern United States, where they constituted a majority of the population. Southern whites saw this new political situation as intolerable, and contrived means to suppress the new voting majority. No tactics of suppression were deemed beyond consideration. Vigilante bands such a…

Smith v. Allwright - A Foot In The Door

The Court's attitude toward the disenfranchisement of African Americans in the South began to change in the late 1930s, as appointees of President Franklin D. Roosevelt began to assert their views in its decisions. A case brought by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department to fight corruption in local politics provided the impetus for the Court to reverse its position as defined in…

Smith v. Allwright - An End To State-sponsored Political Discrimination

Justice Reed delivered the decision of the Court, which voted 8-1 to reverse the lower court rulings and compel the Texas Democratic Party to allow Mr. Smith to cast his primary ballot. In its decision, the Court expressly abandoned the position it adopted in Grovey. The Court reasoned that since the Constitution guarantees all citizens the right to vote, and given the vital nature of participatio…

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