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Blacks & The Ballot 1944-1984

In the '40's and '50's LDF led the fight against the white primary, arbitrary power of registrars to reject voters, violence and other tactics which kept blacks away from voting booth. In the '60's we defended Martin Luther King, Jr., in his protests, including the Selma to Montgomery march, which brought about the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

But it's been a tough two decades since blacks won access to the ballot through the Act.
 
Despite some gains in the number of black elected officials and the number of black registered voters, entrenched political structures, erected during periods of blatant discrimination, continue as barriers.

There are many existing practices calculated to discourage participation by minority voters in the the electoral process: at-large elections (which leave all the seats in the possession of the majority); gerrymandering to make certain no district can elect a minority candidate; inconvenient hours and places for registration (which discourage the poor of every race as well as blacks); run-offs in both primaries and elections, requiring voters to go to the polls over and over again, etc.
 
These systems have a profound impact on minority voters, often effectively denying them the chance to elect candidates of their choice, Even where black voters have high registration rates, they are frequently unable to gain representation in state, county, and municipal government. Which such exclusion is permitted to persist, officials are free to reman unresponsive to the needs of minority citizens. 

STRENGTHENING THE LAW
With LDF playing a leading role, Congress extended and strengthened the Voting Rights Act in 1982. Recognizing the increasing sophistication of discriminatory techniques, Congress specifically provided that plaintiffs may challenge discriminatory practices on the basis of results - without having to prove that the practice was adopted with discriminatory intent.

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"We brought the lawsuit because we felt the whole system was stacked so that blacks could never be elected. We petition and petition and petition for changes but we never get any. We just thought the only way we could get justice would be to bring a suit in the federal courts.
Milton F. Fitch,Sr., Wilson County, North Carolina.

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[[caption]] When no black would even run for County Commissioner in Wilson County, North Carolina, in 1982, two LDF cooperating attorneys - G.K. Buttefield, Jr., and Milton F. Fitch, Jr., began to wonder why. [/caption]]

LDF has increased its voting rights docket to redress claims of discriminatory election schemes under the strengthened Act.

We are currently challenging electoral practices in states as diverse as Alabama, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, covering such items as:

STATEWIDE REAPPORTIONMENT (4 cases)
Louisiana, North Carolina, New York and Tennessee.

COUNTY AND CITY REDISTRICTING (6 cases)

AT-LARGE ELECTIONS (7 cases)
Mobile, Alabama, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Augusta, Georgia, Wilson, Halifax and Guilford Counties, North Carolina, and Jackson, Tennessee.

VOTING RIGHTS CONVICTIONS (1 case)
Pickens County, Alabama

LDF represents two black women convicted of vote fraud by an all-white jury. Both women have been activists for many years, and these charges arose from their efforts to assist elderly and illiterate blacks to vote by absentee ballot.

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[[caption]] Black voters in Wilson, a tobacco county in eastern North Carolina, will not be able to make their votes count - and elect anyone to represent them on the Wilson County Board of Commissioners - unless their attorneys, working with LDF, can win the current lawsuit challenging at-large elections. [/caption]]

In addition we are about to undertake an appeal to the United States Supreme Court in a North Carolina case which challenges the method of electing the school board in Durham County. We also expect to challenge congressional redistricting in Arkansas. 

We are working with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, at the request of the Mississippi Chapter of Operation PUSH, on a lawsuit challenging the Mississippi requirement that prospective voters register twice, often at locations 20 to 30 miles apart, in order to vote in both state and municipal elections. 

With Operation PUSH, we shall challenge the second primary rule in Mississippi which has the effect of requiring blacks who win a plurality in the primary must then compete again in a run-off against the white runner-up.

USING THE STRENGTHENED VOTING RIGHTS LAW 

Section 2 of the 1982 Voting Rights Act widened the scope of challenges to electoral practices which discriminate against minority participation. To spread the world- and to open the way to effective utilization of the new and stronger law- LDF conducted two national voting rights conferences- 

in New Orleans, Louisiana (November 1982); and in Birmingham, Alabama (June 1983) 

attended by black community activists and political and social scientists as well as scores of attorneys. More than half the participants were from the South, where the vast majority of voting-rights violations occur and where the bulk of LDF cases originate. 

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[[caption]] Lani Guinier, LDF Assistant Council [[/caption]]

THE CONTINUING CRISIS 

The Revered Jesse Jackson, national president of Operation PUSH, correctly calls the current crisis one of voting rights enforcement. This, he says, is the unfinished business of the Voting Rights Act. The laws prohibiting discrimination in voting are on the books, but they simply are not being enforced. 

Since the Voting Rights Act was extended and strengthened in 1982, the Justice Department has filed only four lawsuits to enforce its protections. 

One of the cases was a duplicative suit filed over five months after LDF has already initiated the exact same challenge to the method of election in Halifax County, North Carolina, on behalf of over a dozen named plaintiffs. 

In other instances, the Justice Department has refused to enforce the law. 

In North Carolina and Louisiana, LDF has been forced to shoulder the enormous financial burden of litigating costly statewide challenges that could have been quickly and expeditiously resolved through the administrative enforcement process. 

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[[caption]] Napoleon B. Williams, LDF Assistant Counsel[[/caption]]

Fight For The Right To Vote 
1944-1984
AN ANNOTATED CASE HISTORY 

1944- Smith v.Allwright. Supreme Court rules that exclusion of blacks from voting in primary elections of the Democratic party of Texas violates Fifteenth Amendment. 

1947- Rice v. Elmore. The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals forbids the continued exclusion of blacks from South Carolina primaries. The Supreme Court let the decision stand by refusing to review. 

1965- Williams v. Wallace. LDF defends over 1,000 Dallas County, Alabama, citizens protesting denial of voting rights. Federal district court enjoins Governor Wallace from interfering with march from Selma to Montgomery. 

1969- Allen, Richard et al. v. State Board of Elections. The Supreme Court held that changes in Mississippi's electoral laws (such as the adoption of at-large voting for county supervisors) and Virginia's adoption of new procedures for write-in voting- which has not been pre-cleared by the U.S. Attorney General or a federal district court- could not be enforced erupt into operation because of their potentially discriminatory impact on minority voters. 

1972- New York v. United States. LDF intervened on behalf of black and minority voters in New York State, asserting the Justice Department failed to represent minority interests as required by law. Ultimately in the later stages of this case, UJO v. Carey, LDF established the principal that race may be taken into account in fashioning voting districts to compensate for the present effects of past discrimination. 

1976- Beer v. United States. In this long-standing challenge to the New Orleans City Council, the Supreme Court narrowed the applicability of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, ruling that a redistricting plan need not obtain Court or Justice Department approval if redrawn political district lines improve the lot of minority voters. 

1982- Bolden v. City of Mobile. Settlement was reached in one of the country's leading voting rights cases, bringing to a successful conclusion over eight years of litigation to end at-large elections int he city and to gain access for black citizens to the political process in Mobile. 

1983- Major v. Treen. At the behest Gov. Treen the Louisiana Legislature carved New Orleans in two, combining each segment with suburban areas to produce two majority white districts. Neither district was compact, nor were they geometrically regular. In fact, one came to be known as the "Donald Duck" district because it resembled Donald Duck's head and beak. Nevertheless, the reapportionment- required to be submitted to the Department of Justice under the Voting Rights Act- was pre-cleared by Civil Rights Division Chief Brad Reynolds. 

Challenged by LDF attorneys, the gerrymander- so transparently calculated to prevent the election of a black Congressman from Louisiana- was thrown out by a three-judge Federal District Court (Eastern District of Louisiana) on September 23, 1983.

LDF YOUR CONTRIBUTION IS TAX-DEDUCTIBLE 
Kindly make your check payable to THE NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE FUND and mail to P.O. Box 13,064, New York, New York 10049

THE NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND is not part of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People although it was founded by it and shares its commitment to equal rights. LDF has had for over 25 years a separate Board, program, staff, office and budget. 
NOVEMBER 1983 

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