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"A collaborative political resource." |
1948 Democratic Convention: The Line Squall
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Race
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| Contributor | 411 Name Removed |
| Last Edited | 411 Name Removed Nov 21, 2004 04:03pm |
| Category | News |
| News Date | Jul 26, 1948 12:00am |
| Description | (TIME, July 26, 1948) -- The first warning thunderclap came on the second night of the convention.
For an hour that evening the sodden delegates had sat through a memorial service to Franklin D. Roosevelt, only half aware of the ceremony's bad taste, bored by its dreariness. "We are here to honor the honored dead," rasped New York's Mayor O'Dwyer. "Won't you please act accordingly?" But neither Bill O'Dwyer's pleas, nor prayers, nor singing, nor oratory dented the delegates' torpor. The rumble of conversation continued to fill the air, only subsiding a little when Congresswoman Mary Norton presented the credentials committee's report.
The fluttering of thousands of cardboard fans gave the effect of a wheatfield in a freakish wind, across which photographers' bulbs flashed like heat lightning. Then a grim- faced Negro loomed on the platform.
He was announced as George L. Vaughn, a delegate from St. Louis and a member of the credentials committee; he wanted to submit a minority report. The majority had agreed to seat the Mississippi delegation. But the Mississippi delegation, Vaughn charged, intended to walk out if Harry Truman's civil rights program was incorporated into the platform and if Harry Truman was nominated. He clenched his fist, yelling: "Three million Negroes have left the South since the outbreak of World War II to escape this thing. I ask the convention to give consideration . . ."
The squall broke. |
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