This would change when Primus E. King, in a preplanned challenge to Georgia’s restrictive voting practices, was refused the right to vote in the Democratic Party’s 1944 primary election.

Immediately following his rejection, King walked to an attorney’s office and filed a lawsuit against the members of the Muscogee County Democratic Party Executive Committee.

In October 1945, Federal Judge T. Hoyt Davis ruled in King’s favor that Georgia’s all-white Democratic primary was unconstitutional.

The ruling energized many Black citizens of Georgia to register to vote for the first time.

By June of 1946, the number of Black voters in Atlanta jumped to approximately 21,244, 27.2% of the electorate.

The rise of Black citizens eager to exercise their right to vote brought about violent opposition from racist white citizens stubborn to equality.

In 1948, African American Robert Mallard was shot and killed in Lyons, Georgia, only two weeks after voting in the gubernatorial election.

Mallard’s murder trial was widely publicized after the county sheriff falsely accused Mallard’s wife of his murder.

The case gained the attention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, including A. T. Walden, president of the Atlanta Chapter.

Only after challenges by outsiders were local white neighbors indicted in the killing.

Although a motive was never officially declared for Mallard’s murder, the case highlighted the need for a grassroots voting rights organization.

From 1949 to 1953, ANVL focused its efforts on endorsing moderate white candidates for local city elections. The league chose to endorse candidates who were receptive to the requests of Black Atlantans and willing to support actions that would improve their living and economic conditions.

In these early years, the organization did not have a voter base to put forth its candidates. Still, they did have enough influence to keep racist candidates keen on upholding segregation out of office.

Even in the screening process, ANVL brought candidates face-to-face with their Black electorate. The screening committee held public meetings in predominantly Black wards, where candidates answered questions and listened to the neighborhoods’ requests. These efforts marked the first time candidates openly campaigned for Black votes during election season and spoke to the power of the coalition.

After candidates were selected, tickets with the names of endorsed candidates were mailed to members two days before election day.  After falsified endorsement cards were distributed by others in the 1949 election, ANVL decided to make their endorsements public by announcing them on Black-owned WERD radio station and in the Atlanta Daily World newspaper.

Despite the relatively large Black population in Atlanta, nearly 200,000 when ANVL was founded in 1949, African Americans were disenfranchised in nearly every way. Atlanta private businesses, public schools, and Grady Hospital were segregated.

Black Atlantans were ready to request improvements and to have their voices heard.

The league’s objectives committee sifted through suggestions from Black Atlantans and presented concise and targeted requests for social and economic improvements to political candidates.

The committee was then responsible for making recommendations to political candidates on behalf of the Black community. And there was much to change.

The objectives committee was also responsible for conducting long-term studies to solve larger problems such as police brutality, unjust policies and practices at Grady Hospital and resistance to public school desegregation after the 1954 Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision.

Although life in Atlanta was far from equal, the Black population’s unified advocacy for improvements improved their quality of life.

The success of ANVL reached well beyond Atlanta, which was quickly becoming known as one of the best cities in the country for Black Americans to live. In 1955, Mayor Hartsfield coined the phrase “a city too busy to hate” to describe Atlanta.  Seeing the impact of ANVL’s unified coalition, Black citizens across the U.S. attempted to create similar organizations and apply similar methods in their cities.

The same year Dobbs left the organization, ANVL began recruiting Black candidates to run in city elections instead of solely endorsing white candidates. The league found success in this arena when they endorsed candidate Rufus Clements. Clements defeated a white incumbent for a seat on the Atlanta Board of Education, making him the first African American to hold public office in Atlanta since the Reconstruction era. ANVL also supported A. T. Walden and Miles G. Amos in their successful campaigns for seats on the city’s Democratic Executive Committee.

As the Civil Rights Movement gained traction, Black leadership in the city grew more fractured and young voters felt less of an allegiance to ANVL. The organization attempted to combat its dwindling membership by establishing the Atlanta Junior Voters’ League in 1959 to focus on mobilizing young voters aged 17 to 25.

Despite these efforts, the league would continue to lose its influence in city politics. After the death of A. T. Walden in 1965, leadership in the league weakened. With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed discriminatory practices in most areas of American life, ANVL became a less significant force in Atlanta elections.