During the period from the end of World War II until the late 1960s, often referred to as America’s “Second Reconstruction,” the nation began to correct civil and human rights abuses that had lingered in American society for a century. A grassroots civil rights movement coupled with gradual but progressive actions by Presidents, the federal courts, and Congress eventually provided more complete political rights for African Americans and began to redress longstanding economic and social inequities. While African-American Members of Congress from this era played prominent roles in advocating for reform, it was largely the efforts of everyday Americans who protested segregation that prodded a reluctant Congress to pass landmark civil rights legislation in the 1960s.76
Herblock CartoonView Larger
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
A Herblock cartoon from March 1949 depicts a glum-looking President Harry S. Truman and “John Q. Public” inspecting worm-ridden apples representing Truman’s Fair Deal policies such as civil rights and rent controls. The alliance of conservative southern Democrats and Republicans in Congress who successfully blocked many of Truman’s initiatives is portrayed by the worm labeled “Coalition.”
During the 1940s and 1950s, executive action, rather than legislative initiatives, set the pace for measured movement toward desegregation. President Harry S. Truman “expanded on Roosevelt’s tentative steps toward racial moderation and reconciliation,” wrote one historian of the era. Responding to civil rights advocates, Truman established the President’s Committee on Civil Rights. Significantly, the committee’s October 1947 report, “To Secure These Rights,” provided civil rights proponents in Congress with a legislative blueprint for much of the next two decades. Among its recommendations were the creation of a permanent FEPC, the establishment of a permanent Civil Rights Commission, the creation of a civil rights division in the U.S. Department of Justice, and the enforcement of federal anti-lynching laws and desegregation in interstate transportation. In 1948 President Truman signed Executive Order 9981, desegregating the military.77
The backlash to Truman’s civil rights policies contributed to the unraveling of the solid Democratic South. A faction of southern Democrats, upset with the administration’s efforts, split to form the States’ Rights Democratic Party, a conservative party that sought to preserve and maintain the system of segregation. Also known as the Dixiecrats, they nominated South Carolina Governor—and future U.S. Senator—Strom Thurmond as their presidential candidate in 1948.78
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