Mobile v. Bolden

The appellees claimed that the city's method of electing its commissioners discriminated against African Americans by diluting their votes. The Mobile City Commission consisted of three members elected at large from the entire city, rather than from particular districts. These three members jointly exercised all administrative, legislative, and executive power in the city. At the time the class action suit was brought against Mobile, no African American citizen had ever served on the commission, although the population of the city was approximately 35.4 percent African American.

The effect of the law had clearly been to keep African American citizens from serving on the city commission. The appellees claimed that their voting rights under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments had been denied. The Supreme Court determined that the city had not denied African Americans their right to vote under the Fifteenth Amendment, since African American citizens routinely registered and voted. The Fifteenth Amendment, declared Justice Stewart in the Court opinion, "imposes but one limitation on the powers of the states: it forbids them to discriminate against Negroes in matters having to do with voting."