Editing Dixiecrat (section)

==1948 presidential election==
{{main|1948 United States presidential election}}
After Roosevelt died, the new president [[Harry S. Truman]] established a highly visible [[President's Committee on Civil Rights]] and issued [[Executive Order 9981]] to end discrimination in the military in 1948. A group of Southern governors, including [[Strom Thurmond]] of South Carolina and [[Fielding L. Wright]] of Mississippi, met to consider the place of Southerners within the Democratic Party. After a tense meeting with [[Democratic National Committee]] (DNC) chairman and Truman confidant [[J. Howard McGrath]], the Southern governors agreed to convene their own convention in [[Birmingham, Alabama]] if Truman and civil rights supporters emerged victorious at the [[1948 Democratic National Convention]].<ref name="donaldson">{{cite book |last1=Donaldson |first1=Gary |title=Truman Defeats Dewey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_w_VBgcj7scC&q=%22fielding+wright%22+1948 |publisher=[[University Press of Kentucky]] |date=2000 |pages=118–122 |isbn=9780813128511 |access-date=8 October 2015}}</ref> In July, the convention nominated Truman to run for a full term and adopted a plank proposed by Northern liberals led by [[Hubert Humphrey]] calling for civil rights; 35 Southern delegates walked out. The move was on to remove Truman's name from the ballot in the southern United States. This political maneuvering required the organization of a new and distinct political party, which the Southern defectors from the Democratic Party chose to brand as the States' Rights Democratic Party.

Just days after the 1948 Democratic National Convention, the States' Rights Democrats held their own convention at [[Boutwell Memorial Auditorium|Municipal Auditorium]] in Birmingham, on July 17.<ref>{{cite journal |first=J. Barton |last=Starr |title=Birmingham and the 'Dixiecrat' Convention of 1948 |journal=Alabama Historical Quarterly |year=1970 |volume=32 |issue=1–2 |pages=23–50}}</ref> While several leaders from the [[Deep South]] such as Strom Thurmond and [[James Eastland]] attended, most major Southern Democrats did not attend the conference.<ref name="frederickson" /> Among those absent were Georgia Senator [[Richard Russell Jr.]], who had finished with the second-most delegates in the Democratic presidential ballot.<ref name="frederickson">{{cite book |last1=Frederickson |first1=Kari |title=The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932-1968 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_Y0MCgAAQBAJ&q=dixiecrat+1948+convention |publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]] |date=14 January 2003 |pages=135–142 |isbn=9780807875445 |access-date=7 October 2015}}</ref>

[[File:ElectoralCollege1948.svg|thumb|450px|1948 electoral votes by state. The Dixiecrats carried Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina, and received one additional electoral vote in [[Tennessee]] (colored in orange). States in blue voted for Democrats [[Harry S. Truman]] and [[Alben W. Barkley]]; those in red voted for Republicans [[Thomas E. Dewey]] and [[Earl Warren]].]]
Prior to their own States' Rights Democratic Party convention, it was not clear whether the Dixiecrats would seek to field their own candidate or simply try to prevent Southern electors from voting for Truman.<ref name=frederickson/> Many in the press predicted that if the Dixiecrats did nominate a ticket, [[Arkansas]] Governor [[Benjamin Travis Laney]] would be the presidential nominee, and South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond or Mississippi Governor [[Fielding L. Wright]] the vice presidential nominee.<ref name=frederickson/> Laney traveled to Birmingham during the convention, but he ultimately decided that he did not want to join a third party and remained in his hotel during the convention.<ref name=frederickson/> Thurmond himself had doubts about a third-party bid, but party organizers convinced him to accept the party's nomination, with Fielding Wright as his running mate.<ref name=frederickson/> Wright's supporters had hoped that Wright would lead the ticket, but Wright deferred to Thurmond, who had greater national stature.<ref name=frederickson/> The selection of Thurmond received fairly positive reviews from the national press, as Thurmond had pursued relatively moderate policies on civil rights and did not employ the fiery rhetoric used by other segregationist leaders.{{Sfn|Frederickson|2001|p=143}}

The States' Rights Democrats did not formally declare themselves as being a new third party, but rather said that they were only "recommending" that state Democratic Parties vote for the Thurmond–Wright ticket.<ref name=frederickson/> The goal of the party was to win the 127 electoral votes of the Solid South, in the hopes of denying Truman–Barkley or Dewey–Warren an overall majority of electoral votes, and thus throwing the presidential election to the [[United States House of Representatives]] and the vice presidential election to the [[United States Senate]].<ref name=frederickson/> Once in the House and Senate, the Dixiecrats hoped to throw their support to whichever party would agree to their segregationist demands.<ref name=frederickson/> Even if the Republican ticket won an outright majority of electoral votes (as many expected in 1948), the Dixiecrats hoped that their third-party run would help the South retake its dominant position in the Democratic Party.<ref name=frederickson/> In implementing their strategy, the States' Rights Democrats faced a complicated set of state election laws, with different states having different processes for choosing [[United States Electoral College|presidential electors]].<ref name=frederickson/> The States' Rights Democrats eventually succeeded in making the Thurmond–Wright ticket the official Democratic ticket in [[Alabama]], [[Louisiana]], [[Mississippi]], and [[South Carolina]].{{Sfn|Frederickson|2001|pp=145–147}} In other states, they were forced to run as a third-party ticket.{{Sfn|Frederickson|2001|pp=145–147}}

In numbers greater than the 6,000 that attended the first, the States' Rights Democrats held a boisterous second convention in [[Oklahoma City]], on August 14, 1948,{{Sfn|Frederickson|2001|pp=133–147}} where they adopted their party platform which stated:<ref name=platform>{{cite web |url=http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25851#axzz1iGn93BZz |title=Platform of the States Rights Democratic Party, August 14, 1948 |work=Political Party Platforms, Parties Receiving Electoral Votes: 1840-2004 |publisher=The American Presidency Project |access-date=January 1, 2012}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race; the constitutional right to choose one's associates; to accept private employment without governmental interference, and to earn one's living in any lawful way. We oppose the elimination of segregation, the repeal of [[anti-miscegenation laws|miscegenation statutes]], the control of private employment by Federal bureaucrats called for by the misnamed civil rights program. We favor home-rule, local self-government and a minimum interference with individual rights.}}

The platform went on to say:<ref name=platform/>

{{Blockquote|We call upon all Democrats and upon all other loyal Americans who are opposed to totalitarianism at home and abroad to unite with us in ignominiously defeating Harry S. Truman, Thomas E. Dewey and every other candidate for public office who would establish a Police Nation in the United States of America.}}

In Arkansas, Democratic gubernatorial nominee [[Sid McMath]] vigorously supported Truman in speeches across the state, much to the consternation of the sitting governor, Benjamin Travis Laney, an ardent Thurmond supporter. Laney later used McMath's pro-Truman stance against him in the 1950 gubernatorial election, but McMath won re-election handily.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Tribble |first1=Riley |title=A Term Denied: The Election Campaigns of Gov. Sid McMath through the Eyes of the Arkansas Gazette |url=https://uca.edu/cahss/files/2020/07/Tribble-CLA-2018.pdf |website=University of Central Arkansas — UCA |access-date=25 April 2023}}</ref> Efforts by States' Rights Democrats to paint other Truman loyalists as turncoats generally failed, although the seeds of discontent were planted which in years to come took their toll on Southern moderates. On election day in 1948, the Thurmond–Wright ticket carried the previously solidly Democratic states of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, receiving 1,169,021 popular votes and 39 [[United States Electoral College|electoral]] votes. [[Progressive Party (United States, 1948)|Progressive Party]] presidential nominee [[Henry A. Wallace]] drew off a nearly equal number of popular votes (1,157,172) from the Democrats' left wing, although he did not carry any states. The splits in the Democratic Party in the 1948 election had been expected to produce a victory by GOP presidential nominee Dewey, but Truman defeated Dewey in an upset victory.