Constitutional Vision and Supreme Court Decisions: Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race

Abstract

In the decade following the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a spate of significant advancements in civil rights provided new hope and opportunity for African Americans. On December 5, 1946, in an unprecedented move, President Harry Truman created a civil rights committee “to study and report on the problem of federally secured civil rights, with a view to making recommendations to Congress.” In little less than a year, the committee drafted and submitted a report more sweeping than Truman had likely expected. Entitled To Secure These Rights, the report called for no less than an outright “elimination of segregation, based on race, color, creed, or national origin, from American life.” To achieve this goal, the committee stressed that the federal government would have to assume much greater responsibility in the protection of civil rights. It recommended both an ever more vigilant Justice Department and the enactment of comprehensive national legislation. On February 2, 1948, the president called on the Congress to endorse his ten-point civil rights program in order to “correct the remaining imperfections in our practice of democracy.”Truman's 1947 State of the Union address, January 6, 1947, Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S. Truman, 1947 (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1962), 9; The President's Committee on Civil Rights, (PCCR) To Secure These Rights (New York: Simon and Schuster, October 26, 1947), 166; Truman's Special Message to the Congress on Civil Rights, February 2, 1948, Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S. Truman, 1948 (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1964), 126. On July 26, 1948, acting alone, Truman issued two executive orders; one designed to end racial discrimination in federal employment, the other barring segregation in the armed forces.