The States' Rights Party in the 1948 Election

Dixiecrats Challenge Liberal Democratic Desegregation Policies

Mar 25, 2009

Hoping to throw the election of 1948 into the House of Representatives, Southern "Dixiecrats" mobilized to stop federal anti-segregationist legislation.

The first post-war presidential election in 1948 pitted President Harry Truman against three other contenders. Thomas Dewey represented the Republicans while two other candidates, Henry A. Wallace and J. Strom Thurmond represented the extremes of the Democratic Party. Ultimately, neither extremist candidate would affect Truman’s reelection. Thurmond’s States’ Rights Party or Dixiecrats, however, carried four Southern states and received 39 electoral votes; their goal had been all of the South’s 127 Electoral College votes.

Formation of the Dixiecrats in 1948

When the Democratic National Convention met in 1948, nominating Truman and refusing to amend party platforms that supported Truman’s anti-segregationist initiatives, Southern delegates walked out and formed the States’ Rights Democratic Party. Kari Frederickson of the University of Alabama writes that the party was formed in Birmingham, Alabama in July 1948. However, Paul Boller, Emeritus Professor at Texan Christian University, states that the party convention took place at Montgomery.

This “rump party,” as Dr. Glenn Feldman of the University of Alabama at Birmingham calls it, nominated South Carolina Governor J. Strom Thurmond. The strategy of the Dixiecrats was to deny enough electoral votes to either primary candidate in order to see the election decided by the House of Representatives. This would give the “solid South” enough clout to thwart any federal anti-segregationist legislation pending in the Congress.

Threats to Southern Segregation Policies

Kari Frederickson writes that the “roots of the Dixiecrat revolt lay in opposition to the New Deal policies, particularly the pro-labor reforms introduced by the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Wagner Act.” Other writers, however, refer to the perceived alliances of poor white and poor blacks in the wake of New Deal legislation. Diane McWhorter, writing in The Nation (January 9, 2003), blames Franklin Roosevelt’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice (1941) which “Truman was proposing to make…a permanent agency.”

By the summer of 1948 President Truman had already taken steps to desegregate the armed forces. The Democratic Party platform contained a civil rights plank. Additionally, the effects of the 1944 Supreme Court decision in the Smith v. Allwright were being felt dramatically in the South. The Smith decision reversed Grovey v. Townsend (1935) that had upheld Southern efforts to deny Fifteenth Amendment rights to Southern blacks in regard to primary elections. African Americans could not be barred from Party participation.

Beyond the possibility of anti-segregationist policies, Southerners resisted federal proposals to criminalize lynching, end the poll tax, and stop discrimination in the work force. Much of this was also related to labor relations. McWhorter writes that, “The same representatives of organized money who spearheaded the vicious campaign against Roosevelt became the brain trust of the Dixiecrat Party.” Her analysis corresponds to the class-struggle approach to American History favored by Columbia Historian Howard Zinn.

Results of the 1848 Election

Strom Thurmond received 1,169,063 popular votes. The States’ Rights Party did not influence the election. Strom Thurmond would eventually become a Republican and serve as Senate Pro Tempore before his death in 2003. After his death, Essie Mae Williams, an African American, came forward and stated that she was the daughter of Thurmond.

The Dixiecrats popularized discontent within the Democratic Party, which may have ultimately led to the growth of Republican strength in the South. The decade of the 1950s would see a rise in liberal Democrats in the Northeast willing to challenge Southern segregationist policies. In many ways, the Dixiecrats pressured this party change. Eventually, a solidly Democratic South would become a sea of “Red States” supporting Republican agendas.

Paul F. Boller, Jr., Presidential Campaigns From George Washington to George W. Bush (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Alfred H. Kelly and Winfred A. Harbison, The American Constitution: Its Origins & Development 5th Edition, (W. W. Norton & Company, 1976).

Kari Frederickson, “Dixiecrats,” Encyclopedia of Alabama (on-line, encyclopdediaofalabama.org).

The copyright of the article The States' Rights Party in the 1948 Election in Modern US History is owned by Michael Streich. Permission to republish The States' Rights Party in the 1948 Election in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.