"By the end of Roosevelt's tenure in the White House, his silence on civil rights became conspicuous to many African Americans. Truman was not so reserved: in his first two years in office, for example, he addressed issues of civil rights in his speech at the closing session of the UN Conference on International Organization (UNCIO) on June 26, 1945; in his special messages to Congress on September 6 and November 19, 1945; in a January 3, 1946, radio address on the Reconversion Program; and in his 1946 State of the Union message. "

"On December 5, 1946, Truman ... announced "the creation of a President’s Committee on Civil Rights. He had been moved to act after a delegation had called on him to protest outrages against blacks. He was appalled especially by an incident in Aiken, South Carolina, where, only three hours after a black sergeant had received his separation papers from the United States Army, policemen gouged out his eyes. In Georgia, Truman heard, the only black to have voted in his area was murdered by four whites in his front yard. In another Georgia county two black men were gunned down by a white gang, and when one of their wives recognized one of the killers, both the wives were shot to death too. On being told at a meeting with the National Emergency Committee Against Mob Violence of the blinding of the black sergeant, the President, his face “pale with horror,” rose and said, “My God. I had no idea it was as terrible as that. We’ve got to do something!”

To read more about the President's Committee on Civil Rights, click here.

“The white South had good reason to conclude that by 1947 Truman had changed. He had done so, in part, for political reasons. In World War II Southern blacks had migrated in large numbers to states, such as Michigan and California, with big blocs of electoral votes, and in the 1946 elections, dismayed by Southern racist demagogues, they had given evidence of drifting away from the Democrats. Even in the South black voters promised to be an increasing presence following a 1944 Supreme Court decision outlawing the white primary. Truman was motivated too by foreign policy concerns. Discrimination against people of color was proving an embarrassment to the government as it vied with the Soviet Union for the allegiance of Third World nations. Probably most important, though, was Truman’s outrage against the mistreatment of blacks. Truman had never been willing to condone denying to citizens, black or white, their fundamental rights, and as President he was expanding his awareness of the need to use federal power to secure to all Americans the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. What Southern politicians thought could be explained only as self-interested bids for black votes actually represented both long-held beliefs and maturing convictions.”

On October 29, 1947, the report of the President's Committee on Civil Rights was released (here), It was hailed by civil rights advocates and white liberals as a pathbreaking document and denounced by white southern segregationists as an assault on their way of life.

"On February 2, 1948, Truman, undaunted by Southern criticism, sent a special message to Congress asking it to enact a number of the recommendations of his committee. Never before had a President dispatched a special message on civil rights. He called for an anti-poll tax statute, a permanent FEPC, an anti-lynching law, and creation of a Commission on Civil Rights. To end intimidation at the polls, he asked for legislation banning interference by either public officials or private citizens with the free exercise of the suffrage. He did not embrace his committee’s recommendation to deprive states of federal grants if they did not abandon Jim Crow, but in keeping with recent Supreme Court decisions, he did call upon Congress to forbid segregation in interstate travel. 'As a Presidential paper,' the historian Irwin Ross has written, 'it was remarkable for its scope and audacity.'"

"An example of the southern response: 'In a long speech on the Senate floor, Sen. James Eastland charged that the President’s program was an effort 'to secure political favor from Red mongrels in the slums of the great cities of the East and Middle West' who planned to defile 'the pure blood of the South.' The President’s 'anti-southern measures,' he maintained, would destroy the South 'beyond hope of redemption.'

“Truman, shocked by the ferocity of the assault on him and recognizing that his re-election was in jeopardy, sought to placate his Southern critics, but he would not appease them by abandoning fundamental principles. … ‘I stand on the Constitution, ... I take back nothing of what I proposed and make no excuses for it.’”

In July, Truman wins the nomination and the Democrats adopt a strong civil rights platform. You may want to listen to this August 28, 2008, NPR Morning Edition on the platform fight at the convention: In 1948, Democrats Weather Civil Rights Divide. (5:29)

On July 26, 1948, Truman signed Executive Order 9981, establishing the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, committing the government to integrating the segregated military. On the same day he also signed Executive Order 9980 "Governing Fair Employment Practices Within the Federal Establishment" insuring employment without discrimination because of race, color, religion, or national origin.

"In the final days of the election cycle, Truman gave a speech to an enormous crowd in Harlem, making him the first U.S. president to visit the capital of Black America. Governor Dewey had a significant following in New York City, and was a sure thing as far as the State of New York was concerned, but when election results came in, Truman's ninety thousand votes in Harlem far outweighed Dewey's twenty-five thousand."(History News Network, George Washington University @ http://hnn.us/article/162309).