Voting system overruled in black Georgia county
July 2, 1982
Washington
The Supreme Court voted Thursday to throw out an election system that kept whites in power in a predominantly black Georgia county since the Civil War.
The justices declared unconstitutional the system used by Burke County to elect its five commissioners based on countywide votes. Under that system, no blacks were ever elected to the commission.
The court also ruled 5 to 4 that the last all-female state college in the country, Mississippi University for Women, must admit male nursing students.