Dr. Lawrence Nixon and Drusilla Tandy Porter

You are at Historias: El Paso's Black History, Site # 3: Site of Dr. Nixon’s landmark 1924 vote at 2317 Texas Avenue.

On Saturday, July 26, 1924, Dr. Lawrence A. Nixon presented his poll tax receipt at 2317 Texas Avenue, the site of the Democratic Primary. The year before, the Texas State Legislature had passed a bill expressly forbidding Black Texans from voting in the Democratic Primary—an effort by the Republican Party to weaken the Democratic Party’s power in the state. As the site of the state’s first chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), El Paso was seen as the ideal Texas city in which in which to challenge the restrictions of the new bill due to its small but politically engaged Black population. With his high standing in the community, Dr. Nixon was chosen to be the one in whose name the suit would be filed. After he was inevitably turned away from voting on July 26, 1924, Dr. Nixon filed a suit that would eventually reach the Supreme Court. Though the Supreme Court decided unanimously in Dr. Nixon’s favor, the court’s opinion left open legal loopholes that allowed Texas to continue to prevent Black Texans from voting. In 1928, Dr. Nixon filed another suit that also went before the Supreme Court and despite a second favorable ruling from the nation’s highest court, Texas continued to use loopholes to restrict voting rights. Dr. Nixon would not vote in an El Paso primary until 1944 when the Supreme Court case Smith v. Allwright fully prohibited the exclusion of Black Texans from primaries.

Sources: Dr. Lawrence A. Nixon and the White Primary (Southwestern Studies) by Conrey Bryson

Support for this project is provided by Art Bridges as part of DelArt’s Black Survival Guide, or How to Live Through a Police Riot exhibit on display at the El Paso Museum of History through July 22, 2022. The Museum of History is located at 510 N Santa Fe Street, is free admission, and is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10 AM to 6 PM.

Commissioned from conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas, Black Survival Guide is an innovative, participatory exhibition that draws attention to the "holes" in narrative history through the melding of words and pictures. To complement this exhibit, the El Paso Museum of History has installed six QR codes throughout downtown and central El Paso to recognize sites of local Black history.

Image Description: This photo shows Dr. Lawrence Nixon and Drusilla Tandy Porter standing together in front of the desert backdrop. Dr. Nixon is standing with his hands behind his back, looking at the camera with a small smile, and Ms. Porter has her arm through Dr. Nixon's arm, she is extending one leg slightly more than the other, and she is smiling at the camera.