The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 81, July 1977 - April, 1978 Page: 373
521 p. : ill. (some col.), ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The Elusive Ballot
proscription, and white candidates continued to solicit the black vote.
The uncertainty surrounding the issue created a climate in which vari-
ous factions and personalities within the Democratic party intensified
agitation for universal black disfranchisement and a law which would
remove the question from the political arena altogether.3
As a result of pressure from local whites in Bexar County-particu-
larly from the district attorney, D. A. McAskill (who proclaimed that
the black vote had to be annihilated because of the degree to which it
was manipulated by unscrupulous white and black politicians), with
the combined support of prohibitionists and probably many Ku Klux
Klan members-the Texas state legislature in 1923 enacted a law which
declared that: "In no event shall a negro be eligible to participate in a
Democratic party primary election held in the State of Texas, and
should a negro vote in a Democratic primary election, such ballot shall
be void and election officials shall not count the same." Lawrence A.
Nixon, a black El Paso dentist, and L. W. Washington, the local El
Paso branch president of the NAACP, contacted the national NAACP
headquarters in New York and requested assistance to launch a cam-
paign to have the law declared unconstitutional.4
Nixon, a fourteen year resident of El Paso, was born in Marshall,
Texas, in 1884. He received his medical training at Meharry Medical
College in Nashville, Tennessee, and established his dental practice in
El Paso in 1910. Until the 1923 white primary statute, Nixon had regu-
larly voted in Democratic primary and general elections. He agreed to
serve as the plaintiff in legal action against the white primary. Washing-
ton quickly mobilized the members of the local El Paso NAACP branch
to raise funds and financially support the suit. They retained white at-
3Charles Kincheloe Chamberlain, "Alexander Watkins Terrell, Citizen, Statesman"
(Ph.D. dissertation; University of Texas, 1956), 462-468; Rice, Negro in Texas, 136; Paul E.
Isaac, "Municipal Reform in Beaumont, Texas, 19o2-19o9," Southwestern Historical Quar-
terly, LXXVIII (April, 1975), 421-422; Conrey Bryson, Dr. Lawrence A. Nixon and the
White Primary (El Paso, 1974), I2; Harold M. Tarver, "The Whiteman's Primary (An
Open Letter to D. A. McAskill, 1922)." A printed copy of this letter from a black resident
of San Antonio is in the Library, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas, Aus-
tin. This letter is listed in the library card catalogue under "Tarver."
4Texas Revised Civil Statutes, Article 3107 (1925) (quotation); J. Alston Atkins, The
Texas Negro and His Political Rights: A History of the Fight of Negroes to Enter the
Democratic Primaries of Texas (Houston, 1932), 6-24; Lewis Gould, Progressives and Pro-
hibitionists: Texas Democrats in the Age of Wilson (Austin, 1973), 48-49; Alwyn Barr,
Black Texans: A History of Negroes in Texas, 1528-1971 (Austin, 1973), 134-135; Lewin-
son, Race, Class and Party, 113; Charles C. Alexander, The Crusade for Conformity: The
Ku Klux Klan in Texas, Ig92o-93o, Texas Gulf Coast Historical Association, Vol. VI, No.
1 ([Houston], 1962), v; Charles C. Alexander, The Ku Klux Klan in the Southwest (Lex-373
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 81, July 1977 - April, 1978, periodical, 1977/1978; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101205/m1/429/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.