Terry v. Adams

Justice Black wrote, "It is apparent that Jaybird activities follow a plan purposefully designed to exclude Negroes from voting and at the same time to escape the Fifteenth Amendment's command . . . " Black noted that the Fifteenth Amendment bans racial discrimination by both state and nation and establishes a national policy regarding the election of national, state, or local officials. Black stated that because the Jaybird primary excluded African Americans, it was precisely the kind of election the Fifteenth Amendment sought to prevent. Black called the state's permitting this duplicate primary "a flagrant abuse" and added that the county-operated primary, which simply ratified the Jaybird primary, "merely compounds the offense." "The only election that has counted in the Texas county for more than 50 years has been that held by the Jaybirds . . . The effect . . . is to . . . strip Negroes of every vestige of influence in selecting the officials who control the local county matters that intimately touch the daily lives of citizens." The Court reversed the decision of the court of appeals and affirmed the district court's holding that the Jaybird election machinery deprived black citizens of their right to vote on account of their race and color.

Justice Frankfurter also wrote an opinion for Terry v. Adams. He felt that the Jaybird Association was not a political party, but that "if the electoral officials, clothed with State power in the county, share in that subversion, they cannot divest themselves of State authority and help as participants in the scheme." The county electoral officials participated in and condoned a continued effort to exclude black citizens from voting. The action of the association may not be forbidden by the Fifteenth Amendment, but its role in the scheme brings it within reach of the law. Frankfurter noted that a federal court cannot require that the petitioners be allowed to vote in the Jaybird primary. "But a court of equity can free the lawful political agency from the combination that subverts its capacity to function."

Justice Clark agreed with the district court judge that the association was a political party, whose activities fall within the Fifteenth Amendment's ban. He felt that the Jaybird Democratic Association operated as part and parcel of the Democratic Party. Clark summed up his opinion by noting that whatever the Jaybird Association is considered, either a separate political organization or part of the local Democratic party, it is the decisive power in the county's electoral process. The Fifteenth Amendment is applicable to state power in all forms, and since the Jaybird organization chose the county's elected officials, the association took on the attributes of government which draw the Constitution's safeguards into play.