The Truman Era

<h1>Text Preview</h1> <p> <P>Harry S. Truman became president when Franklin D. Roosevelt died in 1945. The Truman era saw the end of World War II, the beginning of the Cold War, the formation of the United Nations, and most of the Korean War. Truman appointed Fred M. Vinson as chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1946. During his tenure, Vinson presided over cases concerning labor unions, Communism, and racial segregation.</P> </p> <p> <P>President Truman advocated modest civil rights legislation. In 1946, he established a Committee on Civil Rights to study race relations and make recommendations on how to increase rights for minority groups. In late 1947, the committee issued its Report on Civil Rights, recommending that the Justice Department play a larger role in protecting the civil rights of all Americans by ending <b>Jim Crow</b> segregation laws and eliminating discrimination. Truman backed this recommendation, and his support created a firestorm in Congress and throughout the Democratic Party. Although this legislation was never enacted, the Justice Department did increase its support of civil rights. Truman also signed an executive order in 1948 that abolished segregation in the armed forces and in the federal bureaucracy. Truman's initiatives would split the Democratic Party and spawn the Dixiecrats, a state's rights Democratic Party, in their efforts to win the White House in 1948 with candidate Governor Strom Thurmond.</P> </p> <p> <P>Just before Truman took office, the Supreme Court made an important civil rights decision regarding voting rights in the case of <i><b>Smith v. Allwright</b></i><b> (1944)</b>. The Texas Democratic Party enforced a rule that required all voters in its primary to be white. At that time, the Republican Party was almost non-existent in the South. This virtual "one party system," meant the real voting decisions were made during the primary elections. The Democratic Party primary voting restriction effectively took decision making at the polls away from black voters. When Lonnie E. Smith, a black Texas resident, was denied the right to vote in the 1940 Texas Democratic primary, he sued county election official S.S. Allwright, claiming that this law violated the Fifteenth Amendment. The Court agreed with Smith and found the restrictions against black citizens unconstitutional.</P> </p> <p> <P>Another important Supreme Court case concerning civil rights is <i><b>Sweatt v. Painter</b></i><b> (1950)</b>, which examined the "separate but equal" doctrine established in <i><b>Plessy v. Ferguson</b></i><b> (1896)</b>. Herman Marion Sweatt applied to the University of Texas Law School, but because of his race, his application was denied. When Sweatt asked the state courts to order his admission, the university attempted to provide separate but equal facilities, called the "Law School for Negroes," for black law students. Sweatt appealed the case, claiming that the university violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court agreed, and required the university to admit Sweatt. The Court also noted that the facilities of the proposed new school would be inherently unequal to those of the existing school. This case ended the "separate but equal" doctrine in professional schools and opened the door for the landmark desegregation case, <i>Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka</i> (1954).</P> </p> <p id="TextCopyright">Copyright 2006 The Regents of the University of California and Monterey Institute for Technology and Education</p>