Black Victory: The Rise and Fall of the White Primary in Texas

In Black Victory, Darlene Clark Hine examines a pivotal breakthrough in the struggle for black liberation through the voting process. She details the steps and players in the 1944 Supreme Court decision in Smith vs. Allwright, a precursor to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. She discusses the role that NAACP attorneys such as Thurgood Marshall played in helping local black Texans claim the right that had been kept from them by white Texans in the Democratic Party: the right to vote. Hine also presents information about the mobilization of black Texans and how each part of the African American community - from lawyers, doctors, and laborers to their wives - was essential to this struggle.