Terry v. Adams
United States Supreme Court
345 U.S. 461 (1953)
The Jaybird Party, a private Texas political organization limited to white members, ran primary elections using procedures identical to official county elections except for excluding Black voters, and Jaybird primary winners had won every subsequent county general election for over fifty years; Terry (plaintiff), excluded from voting in the Jaybird primary, sued, and the district court found the exclusion unconstitutional before the court of appeals reversed on the ground that the Jaybird Party was a private organization outside the Fifteenth Amendment's reach.
Whether a private political organization may constitutionally exclude Black voters from its primary elections under the Fifteenth Amendment where those elections effectively determine subsequent publicly run elections.