During the first half of the 20th century, a series of significant Texas voting rights cases heard by the U.S. Supreme Court collectively ended the "white primary" system established in many areas of the South after the Civil War. These unofficial pre-election polls barred African Americans and effectively prevented them from having political influence. In 1950, African Americans Willie Melton, a farmer, and Arizona Fleming, a businesswoman, began a suffrage movement in Fort Bend County that led to legal action. John Terry and other black county residents agreed to lend their names as plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against A.J. Adams and other officers of the Jay Bird Democratic Association, a whites-only political organization that operated unofficial straw elections to select Democratic nominees for local elections. Because most Texans consistently voted for Democratic candidates, nominees selected by the Jay Birds invariably won the general elections. The case was heard in U.S. District Court in Houston, which ruled for the plaintiffs on the grounds that the Jay Birds were operating as a political party and were therefore subject to state and federal laws protecting voters' rights. That ruling enabled the county's African Americans to vote in an upcoming Jay Bird primary election. After the Jay Birds appealed, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the original judgment in 1951, but local supporters raised funds for another appeal in 1952. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in January 1953 and in Terry v. Adams upheld the original ruling in favor of the plaintiffs. By 1959, the Jay Bird Democratic Association had suspended activities.