''King v. Chapman'' is a 1945 court case between Primus King, a religious leader and barber in

Columbus, Georgia Columbus is a consolidated city-county located on the west-central border of the U.S. state of Georgia. Columbus lies on the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county seat of Muscogee County, with which it ...

, and J. E. Chapman, Jr., the chair of the Muscogee County Democratic Party. It ruled the white primary as used by the Democratic Party of Georgia to be unconstitutional. This case followed the '' Smith v. Allwright'' case, which struck down the white primaries in Texas and began the downfall of white primaries in other Deep South states.

Background and ruling

On July 4, 1944, Primus E. King, an African-American registered voter, went to the

Muscogee County Muscogee County is a county located on the central western border of the U.S. state of Georgia; its western border with the state of Alabama is formed by the Chattahoochee River. As of the 2020 census, the population was 206,922. Its county se ...

Courthouse in Columbus to cast his vote in the Democratic Party’s primary election. He was turned away by law enforcement. Dr. Thomas Brewer, a local physician who co-founded the local branch of the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

, encouraged and financially supported Mr. King in his lawsuit filed in federal court. In a landmark ruling in 1945, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia found in Mr. King's favor, deciding that the exclusion of black voters was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth, Fifteenth and Seventeenth Amendments. The U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal by Chapman, which ended the white primary in Georgia.

Impact

The end of the white primary in Georgia allowed African Americans to pursue the right to vote in Georgia for the first time, although the enforcement of

poll tax A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments fr ...

es,

literacy test A literacy test assesses a person's literacy skills: their ability to read and write have been administered by various governments, particularly to immigrants. In the United States, between the 1850s and 1960s, literacy tests were administered t ...

s and the

County Unit System The county unit system was a voting system used by the U.S. state of Georgia to determine a victor in statewide primary elections from 1917 until 1962. History Though the county unit system had informally been used since 1898, it was formally enac ...

would remain a significant barrier to most African-American voters in Georgia until the 1960s. It would take nearly two decades before Leroy Johnson, the first African American to serve in the

Georgia General Assembly The Georgia General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is bicameral, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Each of the General Assembly's 236 members serve two-year terms and are directly ...

, would be elected. ''King v. Chapman'' also served as an inspiration to Martin Luther King Jr., then a 15-year-old who was admitted to

Morehouse College , mottoeng = And there was light (literal translation of Latin itself translated from Hebrew: "And light was made") , type = Private historically black men's liberal arts college , academic_affiliations ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:King v. Chapman 1944 in United States case law African-American segregation in the United States Civil rights movement case law History of voting rights in the United States United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia cases United States elections case law United States equal protection case law United States Fourteenth Amendment case law United States Fifteenth Amendment case law United States Seventeenth Amendment case law Primary elections in the United States Democratic Party (United States) litigation Politics of Georgia (U.S. state) Georgia (U.S. state) elections Democratic Party of Georgia United States District Court case articles without infoboxes United States racial discrimination case law