1 janv. 1948 - States Rights Democratic Party (DIxiecrats) founded

Description:

States' rights democratic party: Known popularly as the Dixiecrats, a breakaway party of white Democrats from the South that formed for the 1948 election. Its formation hinted at a potential long-term schism within the New Deal coalition.

African American leaders were uncertain what to expect from President Truman, a committed New Dealer who was also known to use racist language. Though Truman did not support social equality for African Americans, he did believe in equality before the law. Moreover, he understood the growing importance of the black vote in key northern states such as New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Civil rights activists Randolph and Powell — along with vocal white liberals such as Hubert Humphrey, the mayor of Minneapolis, and members of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a liberal organization — pressed Truman to act.

With no support for civil rights in Congress, Truman turned to executive action. In 1946, he appointed the Presidential Committee on Civil Rights, whose 1947 report, “ To Secure These Rights,” called for robust federal action to ensure black equality. With the report’s recommendations in mind, in 1948 Truman swung into action. He signed executive orders desegregating federal agencies and the armed forces, the latter after pressure from Randolph’s Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service. The president then sent a message to Congress asking that every one of the report’s recommendations — including the abolition of poll taxes and the restoration of the Fair Employment Practice Committee — become law. It was the most aggressive call for racial equality by the leader of a major political party since Reconstruction.

Truman’s request was too much for southern Democrats. Under the leadership of Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, white Democrats from the South formed the States’ Rights Democratic Party, known popularly as the Dixiecrats, for the 1948 presidential election (see “The 1948 Election” in Chapter 24). This breakaway hinted at a potential long-term schism within the New Deal coalition. Would the civil rights aims of the party’s liberal wing alienate southern white Democrats, as well as many suburban whites in the North? The Dixiecrat movement was a prelude to the discord that would eventually fracture the Democratic Party in the 1960s.

Ajouté au bande de temps:

Date: