Court rulings plus organized drives exploded black voter registration within months

Evidence

Thus, Atlanta’s black community already had a running start when the courts officially struck down Georgia’s white primary in April 1946. Inspired by the decision and their past successes, black leaders established a bipartisan All Citizens Registration Committee to strengthen their presence at the polls. … Within three hours on May 1, for instance, 678 black Atlantans registered at the Butler Street YMCA; the next day, within another three hours, 750 more were added to the rolls at a local housing project; and during a third three-hour period the following day, another 955 signed up at a funeral home. By the end of the two-month drive, the committee had more than tripled the number of blacks registered in the city, to a grand total of 21,244. Less than a year before, blacks had been essentially shut out of Atlanta’s politics. Suddenly, they composed more than a quarter of its electorate. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 83

Categorization

• QUESTION: Registration tripled to 21,244 in two months — a quarter of Atlanta’s electorate. Worth checking how rapidly the white political establishment absorbed or reacted to this sudden numerical shift.
• XREF: connects to: Switching the default rule quadrupled Oregon’s motor-voter registrations — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 1344; Expanding black voting instantly reversed white officials’ refusal of black demands — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 84

Broader Connections

• Expanding black voting instantly reversed white officials’ refusal of black demands #expands (0.75) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 84
• Switching the default rule quadrupled Oregon’s motor-voter registrations #qualifies (0.72) — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 1344