July 12, 1947: Court Bars Whites-Only Primary in South Carolina

A federal court invalidates South Carolina’s effort to save its whites-only primary elections (see April 1, 1946). South Carolina attempted to remove federal court jurisdiction from its primaries, and save its discriminatory primary system, by repealing all of its primary laws. However, the court ruling in Elmore v. Rice invalidates the whites-only system. George Elmore, one of the plaintiffs in the case, is an African-American elector forbidden by South Carolina law from voting in the Democratic primary election. NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall is one of the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs. [ELMORE v. RICE, 2010; American Civil Liberties Union, 2012] Elmore and his family are persecuted by members of the Ku Klux Klan after the ruling. [South Carolina African American History Calendar, 2007 ]