This dissertation has been 64—6875 microfilmed exactly as received BERMAN, William Carl, 1932- THE POLITICS OF CIVIL RIGHTS IN THE TRUMAN ADMINISTRATION. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1963 History, modem University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan Copyright by William Carl Berman THE POLITICS OP CIVIL RIGHTS IN THE TRUMAN .ADMINISTRATION DISSERTATION Presented In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By William Carl Berman, 3. A., M. A. ***** The Ohio state University 1963 Approved by Adviser Department of History AC KUO uLEDGENENTS I wish to thank the 'william Green Foundation and the Harry S. Truman Foundation for the funds they gave me for the puroose of researching and writing this dissertation. I wish also to express my gratitude to Professor Robert Bremner, whose counsel an.! support helped me in numerous ways. Finally, without the assist­ ance of my wife, Deborah, this study would never have been completed--the travail was hers, the degree mine. i i TAELS OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS l i INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I. THE R'"ERGEN CB 0- A HEL POLITICAL PROBLEM 3 II. TRUMAN CREATES A COMMITTEE 35 III . THE PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS 01' CIVIL RIGHTS 69 IV. THE SUCCESo Or1 LITIGATION AND THE FAILURE OF LEGISLATION' 127 V. THE END OF AH ERA 165 BIBLIOGRAPHY 193 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 200 111 INTRODUCTION During the 1930*3 large numbers of Negro voters joined the Democratic party to support Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal* Their Dresence In the party sparked some Northern Democratic liberals to fight for the passage of civil rights legislation, a move which was bitterly re-: sented, and actively opoosed, by Congressmen from the South; thereafter, the lntra-party conflict between advocates and opoonents of civil rights legislation grew In intensity. President Roosevelt, who was afraid of offending powerful Southern Congressmen, tried to sid e-step the issu e.^ But in June 19ij.l grassroots Negro pressure compelled Roosevelt to issue an executive order creating a Federal Fair Employ­ ment Practices Committee. The President's action signified that a new political situation had developed--the Negro voter was now capable of playing an influential role in national politics. President Harry Truman Inherited the unresolved civil rights Issue from the Roosevelt Administration, with­ out, however, inheriting the immense good will and William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and The New Deal, 1932-19U0* (New York, Evanston, and Londfon: Harper Torchpooks: The University Library: Harper Row, 1963), p. l86. 1 2 affection moat Negroes felt for his predecessor. To gain their support, Truman vjould have to identify himself with the cause of civil rights, even at the risk of dividing his own party. This dissertation attempts to reconstruct the historic situation which made it necessary for Truman to seek Ne-ro support during the years he served as Presi­ dent of the United States, and to analyze the methods he used to extend and secure the civil rights of American Negroes. CHAPTER I THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW POLITICAL PROBLEM For almost two generations following the Civil War, Negro voters remembered that Abraham Lincoln and the Repub­ lican Reconstruction Congresses had been their benefactors. The first apparent break in Negro voting habits did not occur until 192S, at which time more than a few urban Negroes en- 1 dorsed New York Governor A1 Smith's Presidential bid. Still, most Negroes cast their ballots for the Republican candidate Herbert Hoover. Not even the depression shook traditional loyalties of a majority of Negroes; they voted once more for * 2 Hoover in 1932. Yet It was a reduced majority which rallied to the standard of the Republican incumbent. Even though Franklin Roosevelt received les3 than a quarter of the Negro votes in Chicago and Cleveland, he, nonetheless, carried Negro wards in Manhattan, Pittsburgh, D etroit, and Kansas City ( M i s s o u r i ) . 3 in the electio n of 1936 Negroes deserted the Republican party to vote en masse for Roosevelt; and Wendell Wilkie's efforts notwithstanding, a majority of Negroes stayed ^Henry Lee Moon, Balance of ^he Negro Vote (Garden C ity, New York: Doubleday, 19^6 ), pp. 1 ri—3I+ * 2Ibid. 3Ibld. 3 with Roosevelt In 191+0.^ (Gunnar Myrdal examined the 191+0 election returns from fifteen Negro wards located In nine different cities and discovered that Roosevelt had won fourteen; whereas he took only nine In 1936 and four in 1932.)5 Negroes had good cause to vote for Roosevelt In 1936 and 191+0. Their economic suffering, stemming from unemploy­ ment and d iscrim in atio n , had been m itigated because New Deal agencies, such as the Worta Project Administration and the Farm Security Administration, provided them with work and relief. Although the favorable treatment accorded Negroes by these agencies was an exception rather than the rule, It was enough to convince most Negroes that Roosevelt1s reforms were also meant for them.^ Perhaps the most important action taken by the Roose­ velt Administration In the field of civil rights prior to the period of defense mobilization was initiated by Attorney General Frank Murphy. On February 3# 1939, he authorized the ^Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma. (New York: Harper & B rothers, 191+1+)» p. "1+96. ^ I b ld . 6 "The most Important contribution of the Roosevelt Administration to the age-old color line problem in America has been its doctrine that Negroes are a part of the country as a whole. The Inevitable discrimination notwithstanding, this thought has been driven home in thousands of communities by a thousand specific acts. For the first time In their lives government has taken on meaning and substance for the Negro m asses." The C ris is , XLVII, (November, 191+0), 18. 5 establishment of a Civil Rights Section within the Justice Department as a means of defending the civil rights of all c i t i z e n s : In a democracy, an important function of the law enforcement branch of government is the aggressive protection of fundamental rights inherent in a free people. In America these guarantees are contained in expressed provisions of the Constitution and in acts of Congress. It is the purpose of the Department of Justice to pursue a program of vigilant action in the prosecution of infringement of these rights. It must be borne in mind that the authority of the Federal Government in this field is somewhat limited by the fact that many of the constitutional guarantees are guarantees against the abuses by the Federal Government Itself or by the State Government, and are not guarantees against infringement by individ­ uals or groups of individuals.' To carry out this mandate, the Justice Department Instituted suits in the Federal courts to expand the Federal Govern­ ment's Jurisdiction in the field of civil rights. For example, it petitioned the Supreme Court to declare unconsti­ tutional those statutory provisions which denied Negroes the Q right to vote in Southern primaries. Though such moves were tifte-consuming, they placed the moral authority and political power of the United States Government behind attempts to modify or nullify laws which sanctioned discrimination, par­ ticularly as they applied to voting rights. ?Robert K. Carr, Federal Protection of Civil Rights, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1947 )» P* 2. ^Francis Biddle, In Brief Authority, (New York: Doubleday, 1962), p. 159* 6 Though Murphy*a order was scrupulously, divorced from politics, President Roosevelt*s Executive Order 8802, which created a Federal Fair Employment Practices Committee, here­ after known as FEPC, was the product of much political contro- Q versy. Roosevelt issued his unprecedented order on June 25, 191+1, in the period of defense mobilization to placate A. P h ilip Randolph, leader of th e March on Washington Move­ ment, who had threatened to bring 100,000 Negroes to Washing­ ton to agitate for an FEPC.^ The fact that Roosevelt released this executive order had a two-fold significance: one, Negroes now demonstrated that they could function as an effective pressure group; two, the government gave notice to the country that Negro labor would be utilized in defense production. Once Northern Negroes obtained jobs in defense plants, Southern Negroes began to migrate to the North and West in order to find similar employment. Between 191+1 and 191+6 over a million Southern Negroes settled in such cities as Chicago, D e tro it, Cleveland and Los Angeles, thereby Increasing both numerical strength and political influence of Northern Negroes, who, according to the 191+0 census figures, had already com­ prised no less than four to five per cent of all potential ^Louis Kesselman, The Social. Politics of FEPC: A Study in Reform Pressure Movements. (Uhiversitv of North (5arollna"Tres a * cVi'apeY B m T lW n , p. U+. ^Herbert G-arfinkel, When Negroes March, (Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1959), p* £f. 7 voters in such major industrial states as New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois.^ It was an important development, the long range implications of which did not escape John Temple Graves, a Southern jo u rn a lis t: It means from now on the Democratic party will he competing for what has heretofore belonged to the Republicans. And because the vote represents something near a balance of power in balance-of-power s ta te s , I t means also th a t Northern Negroes may become more Important then Southern whites.in the party of the white South's long allegiance. 2 Despite the creation of the Civil Rights Section and the establishment of FEPC, President Roosevelt rarely sup- 13 ported or endorsed any civil rights legislation.