The United States Of America

The Constitution And Democracy

Dixiecrats
Dixiecrats, a splinter group of Southern Democrats in the U.S. elections of 1948, who rejected President Harry S. TRUMAN 's civil-rights program and revolted against the civil-rights plank adopted at the Democratic National Convention. A conference of states' rights leaders then met in Birmingham and suggested Gov. J. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina for president and Gov. Fielding Wright of Mississippi for vice president. The group hoped to force the election into the House Of Representatives by preventing either Truman or his Republican opponent, Thomas E. DEWEY , from obtaining a majority of the Electoral votes.
The plan failed. Although Thurmond electors ran and won as the official Democratic candidates in four states -- Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina—other Thurmond electors running as "States Rights Democrats" lost to Truman slates. Thurmond polled 22.5% of the total Southern vote to Truman's 50.1%. Nationally, Thurmond obtained 39 electoral votes with 1,169,032 popular votes. The Dixiecrat movement encouraged Northern blacks to vote for Truman, but it ultimately strengthened the Republican party in the South, for many Dixiecrats became Republicans.

Donald B. Johnson
University of Iowa