3 Quotes by Richard Gergel

[FDR] Roosevelt did issue an important executive order in 1941 creating the Fair Employment Practices Committee to combat discrimination in the defense industry, which avoided a threatened march on Washington led by the civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph. With Roosevelt’s death, on April 12 1945, and the assumption of the presidency by Vice President Harry Truman, civil rights leaders hoped that the new leader might be more willing to publicly embrace their cause.

[Truman’s] consistent support for civil rights legislation was a natural consequence of his political origins as an ally of Tom Pendergast, the Kansas City political boss whose machine relied on loyal support from the city’s black wards. In explaining his vote for anti-lynching legislation, Truman told a southern colleague that the “the Negro vote in Kansas City and St. Louis is too important” to vote otherwise.

Truman’s progressive civil rights record stood in some contrast with his personal prejudices. He differentiated between “political equality,” by which he meant the government’s duty to treat all citizens equally regardless of race, and “social equality,” which were code words for racial integration.