Mayor Hubert Humphrey of Minneapolis.
He was 37 years old.
July 14, 1948: The Democratic National Convention is being conducted at the Convention Hall of the Philadelphia Civic Center. It's not going well. Their nominee for President, the incumbent, Harry S Truman, is not popular, having had a very rough 1st term, which wasn't even intended as his: He became President when Franklin D. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945.
The Republicans had a successful Convention, in the same building, nominating Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York for President, and Governor Earl Warren of California for Vice President. What's more, the Democrats were divided between North and South, on the issue of civil rights: The Northern Delegates wanted to expand them, while the Southern Delegates, based on white supremacy, were determined that there would be no progress at all.
The Convention's Chairman was Senator Alben Barkley of Kentucky, the Senate Minority Leader, the Majority Leader from 1941 to 1946. The Republicans had proposed "to clean the cobwebs" from the federal government. Barkley invoked the Republicans' guilt over the Great Depression, telling the Convention, "I am not an expert on cobwebs. But if my memory does not betray me, when the Democratic Party took over, 16 years ago, even the spiders were so weak from starvation, they could not weave a cobweb in any department of the government in Washington!"
But the Republicans had ridden to victory in the Congressional elections of 1946, reminding the American people of the regulations of FDR's New Deal, which Truman had kept in place, and summarized it in two words: "Had enough?" The answer seemed to be, "Yes." The Democrats' goal of more federal government action seemed to be out of step with what the country wanted. And civil rights? For most white Americans, this issue was not on the front burner, or even on the back burner.
But 2 Delegates proposed a strong civil rights plank for the Party's platform, including an endorsement of the pro-civil rights actions already taken by Truman. (Just 12 days after this, Truman ordered the racial desegregation of the U.S. armed forces.) They were Hubert Humphrey, the Mayor of Minneapolis, and Paul Douglas, a former member of the Chicago City Council. Both men were candidates for the U.S. Senate that year.
In a speech heard on nationwide radio -- and, for the 1st time, seen on nationwide television (the 1940 Conventions were televised, but not nationally) -- Humphrey made it a moral crusade, connecting it with the American Revolution and the spirit of 1776:
To those who say, my friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years late! To those who say this civil rights program is an infringement on States' rights, I say this: the time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of States' rights, and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights!
The Northern Delegates erupted in cheers. The Southern Delegates were dead silent. The plank was voted on, and it passed, 651½–582½.
Of the 278 Southern Delegates, 35 walked out: All 22 from Mississippi, and 13 from Alabama. The remaining Southern Delegates gave their support to Senator Richard B. Russell Jr. of Georgia. It wasn't enough to prevent Truman's nomination on the 1st ballot: He won 926 delegates, Russell 266, with the other 42 votes scattered.
The bolted delegates and other Southerners then formed the States' Rights Democratic Party, a.k.a. the Dixiecrats, who nominated Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina for President, and Governor Fielding Wright of Mississippi for Vice President.
In addition to this challenge from the right, there was a challenge from the left: Henry Wallace, dumped as Vice President in favor of Truman at the 1944 Convention, formed a new party with an old name, the Progressive Party. The concern was not that Wallace would win any States, but that he would gain enough liberal votes, especially enough black votes, to cost Truman the City of New York, and thus the State of New York; Chicago, and thus Illinois; and Los Angeles, and thus California.
Nobody thought Truman could win. Thurmond, the last survivor of the 4 main candidates, admitted in a 1988 interview, "I thought Dewey would win." Unlike Wallace, Thurmond was under no illusions about his own victory: He wasn't on the ballot in any State outside the South, but he could cost Truman some Southern States, to the point where, even if he finished with more Electoral Votes than Dewey, he would fall short of the 267 necessary to become President, throwing the election into the House of Representatives, which was controlled by the Republicans, and would choose Dewey.
Nobody thought Truman could win, not even inside the Convention Hall. Nobody, that is, except Truman himself. He chose Barkley as his nominee for the vacant Vice Presidency, and told the Convention, and told the country, "Senator Barkley and I are going to win this election, and make the Republicans like it, and don't you forget it!" For the 1st time since it was gaveled into session, the Convention had a positive message, and it gave Truman a standing ovation.
Thurmond did cost Truman the States of South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, winning them himself. And Wallace did cost Truman every State in the Northeast except Massachusetts and Rhode Island, throwing them to Dewey.
But Truman won, and brought Democratic majorities to both houses of Congress, returning Rayburn to the Speakership, and making Scott Lucas of Illinois the Senate Majority Leader. Douglas was elected to Illinois' other Senate seat, and Humphrey was elected in Minnesota, beginning a career that would see him be elected Vice President, and run for the Presidency 3 times.
In 1953, Earl Warren, the Republican nominee for Vice President in 1948, was appointed to be Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He would lead a branch of the civil rights revolution from the highest court of the land.
But the shift from the Republicans being "the Party of Lincoln" to the Democrats being "the Party of Civil Rights" was well underway. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a Civil Rights Act into law. Humphrey, then the Majority Whip, had gotten it pushed through the Senate. Strom Thurmond subsequently became the 1st major politician to switch from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party over the issue of race.
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July 14, 1948 was a Wednesday. There were no scores on this historic day: The only sport in-season at the time was baseball, and it was the All-Star Break. The day before, the American League won the All-Star Game, beating the National League, 5-2 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.
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