Oct 29, 2017 3 min read

“When a mayor and a city marshal can take a negro sergeant off a bus in South Carolina, beat him up and put out one of his eyes, and nothing is done about it by state authorities, something is radically wrong with the system.” – Harry S. Truman

This week in 1947, a civil rights commission established by President Harry S. Truman – the first such presidential commission in U.S. history – issued a report, “To Secure These Rights,” which showed that racial discrimination was pervasive in every aspect of American life. In response, Truman sent Congress civil rights legislation focusing on voting rights and fair employment practices. Congress ignored it, prompting Truman to issue several executive orders, beginning in 1948 with Executive Order No. 9981, desegregating the armed forces and requiring that all its members be treated equally. Another Truman executive order, also issued in 1948, outlawed discrimination against persons applying for government civil service positions based on race. A third prevented defense contractors from discriminating in their hiring practices because of race.

By itself this was a tremendous act of bravery, given that in 1948 the nation was deeply racist, and discrimination against blacks was endemic. But what made Truman’s stance on civil rights especially courageous was that he headed up the Democratic Party. The party’s base was in the South, where in 1948 the treatment of blacks included violating their rights, and harming them physically, with impunity. Thus, Truman was a pariah among Democrats in the region, both in their state legislatures and in Congress. Further, in 1948 Truman was running for president, even though, nationwide, he was already so unpopular he was blamed for the fact that, in the 1946 midterm elections, Republicans had gained control of both branches of Congress.

Truman’s unpopularity would prompt two splits within the Democratic Party in the 1948 presidential election. The party’s liberal wing formed the Progressive Party, nominating the ultra-liberal former Vice President Henry Wallace for president. Additionally, anti-civil rights Southern Democrats formed the States’ Rights Democratic Party, nominating South Carolina’s Strom Thurmond for president.

Thus Truman, already unpopular nationwide, faced the likelihood of a massive defection of Democratic voters, and polls showed his Republican opponent, Thomas Dewey, with a commanding lead.

Truman refused to budge, saying of civil rights, “I am going to try to remedy it, and if that ends up in my failure to be re-elected, the failure will be in a good cause.”

And so, ignoring polls and the experts, Truman poured everything he had into his campaign, winning the presidency in one of the great upsets of all time, and continuing to advance civil rights. Regarding civil rights presidents, I consider Truman second only to Abraham Lincoln.

Kauffmann’s e-mail address is bruce@historylessons.net @BruceKauffmann