White primary facts for kids

White primaries were special elections held in the Southern United States where only white people were allowed to vote. These elections were called primary elections because they helped choose who would run for office in the main election.

The Democratic Party or state governments in the South set up these rules. States like South Carolina (1896), Florida (1902), Mississippi (1902), Alabama (1902), Texas (1905), Louisiana (1906), Arkansas (1906), and Georgia (1900) created these rules.

In the South, winning the Democratic primary usually meant winning the main election. So, by stopping Black people and other minority voters from voting in primaries, they were essentially blocked from having a say in who governed. From 1890 to 1908, states in the former Confederacy also passed laws to make it harder for Black people to register to vote.

For example, in 1923, the Texas Legislature passed a law stopping Black voters from joining any Democratic primary. The Supreme Court heard three cases about Texas white primaries in 1927, 1932, and 1935. In the first two cases, the Supreme Court said the state laws creating white primaries were against the Fourteenth Amendment. This amendment promises "equal protection under the law."

After the 1927 ruling, Texas changed its law. It let political parties make their own rules for primaries. In a case called Grovey v. Townsend (1935), the Supreme Court said this new way was okay. They reasoned that the Democratic Party was a private group, not the state government.

But in 1944, in the case of Smith v. Allwright, the Supreme Court changed its mind. It ruled 8–1 against the Texas white primary system. The Court said the 1923 Texas law was unconstitutional because it allowed the state Democratic Party to treat people differently based on race. After this ruling, most Southern states stopped their white primaries.

However, they still used other ways to stop Black people from voting. These included poll taxes (a fee to vote) and literacy tests (reading and writing tests). These rules seemed to apply to everyone, but white officials used them unfairly to stop Black voters. Even though more Black people in the South started to register to vote, progress was slow in places like Mississippi, Alabama, and parts of Louisiana and Georgia. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was later passed to help fix this problem.

Why White Primaries Started

Southern Democratic Party groups began using white primaries in the late 1800s. They wanted to stop Black people from voting and make the Republican Party weaker in the South. To keep white supremacy (the idea that white people are superior), Democratic activists often used violence and cheating during elections.

In the 1890s, Democrats briefly lost power to a group of Populists and Republicans. When Democrats got control of state governments again, they changed election rules. They added new laws or parts to state constitutions to stop Black voters. They made it harder to register and vote.

They used several methods:

• Poll taxes: People had to pay a fee to vote.
• Residency rules: Voters had to live in a place for a certain amount of time.
• Record-keeping rules: Voters had to keep certain records.
• Literacy tests: Voters had to pass reading and writing tests.

White officials managed all these rules. They sometimes protected poor or uneducated white voters with "grandfather clauses." These rules said you could vote if your ancestors had voted before a certain date, which usually excluded Black people. These rules were used so unfairly that even educated Black people could not register to vote.

The Democratic Party successfully stopped many Black people from voting across the South. This also made the Republican Party much weaker there. White Democrats created a one-party system in most Southern states. This gave them a lot of power in the U.S. Congress. They controlled all the seats from their states, gained important leadership roles, and led powerful committees. Black citizens were not only stopped from voting but also from running for local jobs, serving on juries, or holding other public positions. They were treated as second-class citizens.

To further keep minorities out of politics, states like Texas and Georgia created white primaries. This system only allowed white people to vote in the primary elections. They said the main election was the only one run by the state. This gave white members of the Democratic Party control over who would run for office. Since the Democratic Party was so strong in the South after the Civil War, its primary elections usually decided who would win the main election.

Key Court Cases in Texas

Starting in the early 1900s, groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed many lawsuits. They wanted to stop unfair election and voter registration practices in the South.

In 1923, Texas passed a law that said, "in no event shall a negro be eligible to participate in a Democratic party primary election held in the State of Texas." Dr. L. A. Nixon, a Black member of the Democratic Party, challenged this law. He was not allowed to vote in a Texas primary election because of the law. He sued for damages in the case Nixon v. Herndon (1927). The Supreme Court sided with him. They said the law violated the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees "equal protection under the law."

After this ruling, Texas changed its law. It allowed the Democratic Party's state committee to set voting rules for its primaries. The new law said each political party could "in its own way determine who shall be qualified to vote or otherwise participate in such political party." Dr. Nixon sued again in Nixon v. Condon (1932). The Supreme Court again sided with him, based on the Fourteenth Amendment.

Then, the Democratic Party of Texas held a meeting and made a rule to ban Black people from voting in primary elections. This new plan was supported in the case Grovey v. Townsend (1935). The Supreme Court said this type of white primary was constitutional because a political party was a private group.

However, another challenge to the Texas white primaries came in Smith v. Allwright (1944). This case overturned the Grovey v. Townsend decision. In Smith v. Allwright, the Supreme Court ruled that white primaries, as set up by Texas, were unconstitutional.

Even though Smith v. Allwright was about Texas, most Southern states stopped their white primaries after this ruling. Many African Americans were able to register to vote. But states still used other unfair methods, like poll taxes and literacy tests, to stop them. White officials often gave these tests unfairly.

The end of the white primary worried white politicians. For example, in 1946, Mississippi politician Theodore G. Bilbo said many Black people would start voting. He promised to fight against it. His threats of violence stopped about half of the Black citizens who could vote from doing so. This helped him win his election easily.

The 1964 Democratic National Convention

African Americans kept working to gain their full rights as citizens. During the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, people held voter registration drives in Southern states. They tried to work within the system. Sometimes, activists were hurt or even killed. Black Americans made little progress against the strong efforts to keep them from voting.

The 1964 Democratic National Convention was very important. There was a big argument about which delegates from Mississippi should be allowed to attend and vote. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) was a group of Black and white delegates. They claimed the seats for Mississippi. They argued that the official Mississippi delegation had been chosen unfairly because it excluded Black people from voting. Black people were still being stopped from registering and voting in primaries. They were also kept out of local meetings and state conventions. However, the MFDP delegates had followed all the party rules to be chosen.

Leaders of the national Democratic Party wanted to split the seats evenly between the two groups. But President Lyndon B. Johnson was worried. He knew that the regular Mississippi Democrats would likely vote for the Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater, anyway. But he thought rejecting them completely might make him lose the South in the presidential election.

Eventually, a compromise was reached. Hubert Humphrey, Walter Reuther, and Black civil rights leaders like Roy Wilkins and Bayard Rustin worked it out. Two of the 68 MFDP delegates chosen by President Johnson would be allowed to vote. The rest would be non-voting guests. The regular Mississippi delegation had to promise to support the national party. The Democratic Party also promised to only accept delegations chosen fairly in the future.

Joseph Rauh, the MFDP's lawyer, first refused this deal but later urged the MFDP to accept it. However, the MFDP delegates said no. They felt that by accepting the all-white Mississippi delegation, the national party was approving a system that had denied Black people their right to vote for many years. They believed that since they had followed all the party's national rules, they should be the official Mississippi delegation, not just two token members. Many civil rights activists were very upset by this outcome. As leader John Lewis said, "We had played by the rules, done everything we were supposed to do, had played the game exactly as required, had arrived at the doorstep and found the door slammed in our face."

Many white delegates from Mississippi and Alabama refused to promise their support and left the convention. In total, 43 of the 53 members of the Alabama delegation refused to support Johnson and Humphrey. They were not allowed to be seated.

The next year, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This law allowed the federal government to watch over voter registration and other political practices. It helped make sure voting rights were enforced in states where minorities had been stopped from voting. Work began to register African Americans across the South. After decades of being excluded, they began to be elected to office again. By this time, nearly 6.5 million African Americans had moved out of the South in the Great Migration. They left to escape unfair treatment and find jobs in the North, Midwest, and West. This changed the populations of many cities and regions.