They received assistance from Edward Still of Birmingham and NAACP Legal Defense attorneys Jack Greenberg, James W. Nabrit III and Charles E. Williams.

Their complaint alleged that the city's electoral system violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, among other laws.

The Supreme Court agreed to examine the issues to determine whether this at-large system violated Amendments Fourteen or Fifteen, or the Voting Rights Act.

In his plurality opinion, Justice Stewart concluded that the relevant language of the Voting Rights Act paralleled that of the Fifteenth Amendment.

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not require proportional representation as an imperative of political organization.

U.S. District Judge Virgil Pittman held a second hearing beginning May 1981, by which time the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division also intervened on behalf of the plaintiffs, and the law firm of Hand, Arendall, Bedsole, Greaves, and Johnston represented the city.

A "smoking gun" letter had been discovered and admitted into evidence—written by Mobile lawyer and Congressman Frederick G. Bromberg to the Alabama legislature in 1909, it advocated the at-large system in order to prevent blacks from holding office.