Editing Smith v. Allwright (section)

==Background==

[[File:Lonnie-Smith-1944.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Houston dentist Lonnie E. Smith casts his ballot in the 1944 Texas Democratic primary election (July 22, 1944)]]

Lonnie E. Smith, a black dentist from the [[Fifth Ward, Houston|Fifth Ward]] area of [[Houston]]<ref name=Westp104>West, Richard. "[http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/only-the-strong-survive/ Only the Strong Survive]" ([https://web.archive.org/web/20160201014156/http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/only-the-strong-survive/ Archive]). ''[[Texas Monthly]]''. [[Emmis Communications]], February 1979. Volume 7, No. 2. ISSN 0148-7736. START: p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=7S0EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA94 94]. CITED: p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=7S0EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA104 104].</ref> and a voter in [[Harris County, Texas]], sued county election official S. S. Allwright for the right to vote in a [[Partisan primary|primary election]] being conducted by the [[United States Democratic Party|Democratic Party]]. He challenged the 1923 state law that authorized the party to establish its internal rules; the party required all voters in its primary to be [[whites|white]].
The Democratic Party had controlled politics in the South since the late 19th century (see [[Solid South]]) and the state legislatures of the former Confederacy effectively [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised]] blacks in the period from 1890 to 1908, by new constitutions and laws raising barriers to voter registration and voting. This crippled the Republican Party in all southern states except Tennessee and North Carolina where exceedingly loyal [[Southern Unionist|Unionist]] [[Appalachia]]n white Republicanism remained, and resulted in the only competitive elections being held within the Democratic Party primary. Texas had used [[poll tax (United States)|poll taxes]] and the [[white primary]] to exclude nearly all blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities from voting.<ref group="note">The poll tax also had the effect of excluding [[Poor White|poor whites]] although in Louisiana, North Carolina, Alabama, Virginia and Georgia mechanisms like the [[grandfather clause]] refranchised some of them up to a  certain date. As early as 1915, ''[[Guinn v. United States]]'' declared grandfather clauses unconstitutional.</ref>