White Municipal Party

Last updated

The White Municipal Party was a white supremacist political organization established[ when? ] in Tampa, Florida to eliminate African American influence in municipal elections. [1] The group limited local elections to white candidates for many years by excluding African Americans from party membership and thereby blocking them from participating in primary elections where the eventual election winners were actually determined. The party produced an unbroken series of mayors in Tampa from 1910 until 1947. [2]

Florida politics had been dominated by one party, the Democratic Party, since the 1880s. [3] And in 1902 the Florida Democratic Party limited membership to whites only. [1]

The formation of the White Municipal Party followed an attempt by Zacariah D. Greene, a lawyer and principal at Harlem Academy to run for a municipal judgeship. City officials prevented him from running and Judge Wall dismissed his appeal. The judge became a member of the executive committee of the party. [3]

Pam Iorio, who served as mayor of Tampa, wrote about the group in the Florida Historical Quarterly published by the Florida Historical Society. [1]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scipio Africanus Jones</span> American lawyer and politician

Scipio Africanus Jones was an American educator, lawyer, judge, philanthropist, and Republican politician from the state of Arkansas. He was most known for having guided the appeals of the twelve African-American men condemned to death after the Elaine Massacre of October 1919. More than one hundred African Americans were indicted in the aftermath of the riot, although an estimated one hundred to two hundred Black Americans were killed in the county, along with five whites. No whites were prosecuted by the state. The case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which in Moore v. Dempsey (1923) set a precedent of reviewing the conduct of state criminal trials against the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Davis (Florida politician)</span> American politician (born 1957)

James Oscar Davis III is an American politician from the U.S. state of Florida. He is a Democrat and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1997 to 2007, representing Florida's 11th congressional district. He was the Democratic nominee for governor of Florida in the 2006 election, but was defeated by Republican Charlie Crist.

Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court with regard to voting rights and, by extension, racial desegregation. It overturned the Texas state law that authorized parties to set their internal rules, including the use of white primaries. The court ruled that it was unconstitutional for the state to delegate its authority over elections to parties in order to allow discrimination to be practiced. This ruling affected all other states where the party used the white primary rule.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sidney Johnston Catts</span> 22nd Governor of Florida

Sidney Johnston Catts was an American politician, businessman, and anti-Catholic activist. He served as the 22nd governor of Florida from 1917 to 1921 as a member of the Prohibition Party, despite being a Democrat for most of his career. He became involved in criminal procedures due to his activities as governor and for business activities. Although he was later acquitted, he went bankrupt in the process.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pam Iorio</span> American politician

Pamela Dorothy Iorio is an American politician and author, who served as mayor of Tampa, Florida from 2003 to 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dan Gelber</span> American politician

Daniel Saul Gelber is an American politician and former prosecutor serving as the mayor of Miami Beach, Florida. He served in the Florida Legislature from 2000 to 2010 and was the Democratic nominee for Attorney General of Florida in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Florida's 5th congressional district</span> U.S. House district for Florida

Florida's 5th congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Florida. It includes the southeastern area of Jacksonville which comprises areas such as Arlington, East Arlington, Southside, Mandarin, San Jose, and the Beaches. It stretches south to St. Augustine in St. Johns County.

White primaries were primary elections held in the Southern United States in which only white voters were permitted to participate. Statewide white primaries were established by the state Democratic Party units or by state legislatures in South Carolina (1896), Florida (1902), Mississippi and Alabama, Texas (1905), Louisiana and Arkansas (1906), and Georgia (1900). Since winning the Democratic primary in the South almost always meant winning the general election, barring black and other minority voters meant they were in essence disenfranchised. Southern states also passed laws and constitutions with provisions to raise barriers to voter registration, completing disenfranchisement from 1890 to 1908 in all states of the former Confederacy.

Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U.S. 536 (1927), was a United States Supreme Court decision which struck down a 1923 Texas law forbidding blacks from voting in the Texas Democratic Party primary. Due to the limited amount of Republican Party activity in Texas at the time following the suppression of black voting through poll taxes, the Democratic Party primary was essentially the only competitive process and chance to choose candidates for the Senate, House of Representatives and state offices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era</span> Post-civil war voter suppression efforts in the United States

Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era in the United States, especially in the Southern United States, was based on a series of laws, new constitutions, and practices in the South that were deliberately used to prevent black citizens from registering to vote and voting. These measures were enacted by the former Confederate states at the turn of the 20th century. Efforts were also made in Maryland, Kentucky, and Oklahoma. Their actions were designed to thwart the objective of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1870, which prohibited states from depriving voters of their voting rights on the basis of race. The laws were frequently written in ways to be ostensibly non-racial on paper, but were implemented in ways that selectively suppressed black voters apart from other voters.

Nixon v. Condon, 286 U.S. 73 (1932), was a voting rights case decided by the United States Supreme Court, which found the all-white Democratic Party primary in Texas unconstitutional. This was one of four cases brought to challenge the Texas all-white Democratic Party primary. All challenges were supported by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). With Smith v. Allwright (1944) the Supreme Court decisively prohibited the white primary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2010 Florida Attorney General election</span>

The 2010 Florida Attorney General election took place on November 2, 2010, to elect the Attorney General of Florida. The election was won by Republican Pam Bondi who took office in January 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2014 Florida gubernatorial election</span>

The 2014 Florida gubernatorial election took place on November 4, 2014, to elect the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of Florida.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2014 Florida Attorney General election</span>

The 2014 Florida Attorney General election took place on November 4, 2014, to elect the Attorney General of Florida. Incumbent Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi ran for re-election to a second term in office against Democrat George Sheldon and Libertarian Bill Wohlsifer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2018 Florida Attorney General election</span>

The 2018 Florida Attorney General election took place on November 6, 2018, to elect the Attorney General of Florida. Incumbent Republican attorney general Pam Bondi was term-limited and could not seek a third consecutive term.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1944 United States presidential election in Georgia</span> Election in Georgia

The 1944 United States presidential election in Georgia took place on November 7, 1944, as part of the wider United States presidential election. Voters chose 12 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ashley Moody</span> Attorney General of Florida since 2019

Ashley Brooke Moody is an American attorney and politician serving as the Florida attorney general since January 2019. Moody previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney and a circuit court judge in Hillsborough County.

Donald Brenham McKay was the owner and editor of the Daily Times newspaper in Tampa, Florida and served several terms as Mayor of Tampa from 1910 to 1920 and from 1928 to 1931.

Zacariah D. Green, sometimes spelled Zacariah D. Greene, was a lawyer, principal, and community leader in Tampa, Florida. He worked as a lawyer in South Carolina before moving to Tampa where he served as principal of Harlem Academy School. He was also a leader in the St. Paul's AME Church.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Iorio, Pam (2001). "Colorless Primaries: Tampa's White Municipal Party". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 79 (3): 297–318. JSTOR   30150855.
  2. https://www.tbo.com/south-tampa/mayors-offer-history-lesson-on-tampa-st-pete-91380 [ dead link ]
  3. 1 2 Hewitt, Nancy A. (January 5, 2001). Southern Discomfort: Women's Activism in Tampa, Florida, 1880s-1920s. University of Illinois Press. ISBN   9780252026829 via Google Books.