Jackson County (Mo.) Historical Society

Portals to the Past by David W. Jackson

The Principle Prevailed for Harry Truman

Though Harry S Truman was raised in an environment in which segregation and subordination of blacks were accepted practices and institutions, he challenged the status quo. Though his political mentor’s New Deal included the Fair Employment Practices Commission to prevent discrimination in defense industries, race relations in general were largely unaddressed. Upon Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s death, President Truman stepped up to the plate.

Years before, Truman ran on a platform of plain and decent ideals embodied by any ordinary citizen. As a Missouri senator in the 1930s, Truman consistently supported legislation to abolish poll taxes, and to prevent lynchings. He wanted all Americans to have a fair chance at opportunity.

In the years leading up to the famous 1948 Presidential election, Truman had been continually challenged by civil rights opponents, and he pushed to bring civil rights to the forefront as a national issue after Supreme Court rulings began to roll back the permissible areas of legal discrimination.

Clark M. Clifford, as special counsel to the President, presented Truman with a 43-page confidential memo suggesting the electoral strategy in the upcoming election. Clifford particularly emphasized the importance of the black vote, especially beyond the South.

In June 1947, a Committee on Civil Rights was established. Truman then became the first U.S. President to address the National Organization for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P.), where he declared, “We can no longer afford the luxury of a leisurely attack upon prejudice and discrimination.”

The Committee on Civil Rights presented its report, To Secure These Rights, to the President in October 1947. Reaching beyond its initial instructions to suggest new safeguards against racial violence, the Committee pointed out the inequities of life in the Jim Crow South, and the rest of postwar America. Truman heralded the report as an American charter of human freedom that will take its place among the great papers of freedom.

Truman’s January 1948 State of the Union address promised Congress a special, 10-point civil rights message that eventually solidified civil rights as an important issue in the election that November. Truman took considerable political risk in backing civil rights, and had concerns that the loss of Dixiecrat (a term you might look up on Wikipedia) support might destroy the Democratic Party. Still, he believed that if he lost the election because of his civil rights platform, it would be for a good cause. Once again, principle mattered more than his own political fate, Truman had the courage of his convictions.

Truman accomplished some of his goals. He issued Executive Orders desegregating the armed forces, and forbidding racial discrimination in Federal employment. But, most of his reforms stalled in a conservative Congress.

Still, Truman’s efforts set the stage for future civil rights progress. Most of all, perhaps, he gave hope and inspired African Americans to own the ideals of the American Dream. In recognition of Black History Month, join me in applauding this extra-ordinary ordinary citizen!

If you are, or you know an ordinary local resident who is or has contributed to, or participated in the civil rights movement in all its diverse facets, contact Joe Mattox at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center at (816) 513-0700, and ask him about their history program, Faces of Kansas City.

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