Reading Eagle (August 24, 1944)
Negro vote faces test in Georgia
Preacher, denied ballot, files damage suit
Columbus, Georgia (UP) –
Georgia’s Democratic white primary, for years unchallenged, faced a federal court hearing today after a Negro barber and preacher, Primus E. King, filed suit against Muscogee County Democratic executive committeemen for $5,000 on grounds that he was denied the right to vote solely because of his color.
In a complaint filed before U.S. Commissioner N. A. Brown yesterday, King said he met all requirements demanded of a voter in the United States and that he had paid all his state taxes. However, he said, the committeemen refused him a ballot in the July 4 Democratic primary because he was a Negro.
County Democratic Chairman J. E. Chapman Jr., who, with ten other members of the committee was named as defendant, had expected the suit. Chapman had agreed with Negro leaders prior to the election to plan a toke attempt to vote and a subsequent test of the white primary in the courts.
Committee members have 20 days in which to answer the complaint. Commissioner Brown said the case would probably not be heard before March.