1948 July 14

Segregationist Dixiecrats Walk Out of Democratic Party Convention, Create States’ Rights Party

 

Segregationist Southerners, reacting to President Harry Truman’s civil rights program, walked out of the Democratic Party Convention on this day and founded an independent States’ Rights Party, dedicated to preserving racial segregation (August 14, 1948).

On this same day, the Democratic Party had adopted a strong civil rights plank for its platform, the first major political party to do so.

The States’ Rights Party nominated South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond as its presidential candidate. Although Thurmond carried four states, with 39 electoral votes, in the 1948 election (while many liberals supported Progressive Party candidate Henry Wallace), Truman was reelected president.

President Truman had made a major commitment to civil rights. He sent a civil rights program to Congress on February 2, 1948, and had advocated a strong civil rights plank in the 1948 Democratic Party Platform. And on July 26, 1948, he took the historic step of desegregating the armed services by executive order.

Historians generally believe that Truman’s fiery civil rights speech at the party convention and the strong civil rights plank in the Democratic Party Platform and President’s Truman’s actions in creating the President’s Committee on Civil Rights on December 5, 1946 and desegregating the armed forces on July 26, 1948 were important in helping Truman win re-election in November 1948. In 1952, however, the Democrats backtracked, adopting a weak civil rights plank. Partly as a result, Republican Dwight Eisenhower defeated Democrat Adlai Stevenson for president in the November 1952 elections.

Read the States’ Rights Party Platform: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=25851

See newsreel footage of the Dixiecrats walk out of the Democratic Party Convention: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbU0lXeJbi4

Read a biography of Strom Thurmond: Joseph Crespino, Strom Thurmond’s America (2012)

Visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture here

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