Citation: Atkins, Jack. Letter to Charles H. Houston, May 1935. NAACP Papers, Part 04: Voting Rights and the Voting Rights Campaign, 1916–1965. ProQuest History Vault.
This letter is valuable because it gives insight into the NAACP’s internal legal thinking during the uncertain period surrounding Grovey v. Townsend. Correspondence with Charles Hamilton Houston helps reveal how local and national actors evaluated strategy, exchanged information, and assessed the prospects for further litigation. Rather than presenting the movement as a perfect top-down campaign, the document shows how legal strategy emerged through communication among organizers, lawyers, and branches confronting exclusion in real time. That perspective complements the broader narrative in Klarman, who emphasizes the uneven and contingent nature of civil-rights litigation. It also relates to Hine’s account of the white primary struggle as a cumulative effort rather than a single courtroom victory. This source matters because it lets viewers see the strategy in formation, not just the finished product represented by Supreme Court decisions.