This paper begins with a description of Truman's NAACP appearance and describes how Truman went far beyond the efforts of any previous presidents to endorse the cause of civil rights.

But it also strongly emphasizes the role of the NAACP and the interactive process of civil rights mobilization and presidential leadership. "This interactive process, especially the NAACP's constant lobbying of the Truman administration, was an essential prerequisite for these advances. The historian Thomas Sugrue aptly describes the dynamic: 'Civil rights activists engaged in an elaborate dance with Truman. He hesitated, they pushed, he gave, they praised, he paused, they pushed for more.' The NAACP understood that presidential leadership and support was not a gift to receive, but rather a goal for which to fight. The civil rights community never relented; the lobbying and publicity strategies in this era conformed to A. Philip Randolph's advice: 'Freedom is never given; it is won .... True liberation can be acquired and maintained only when the Negro people possess power; and power is the product and flower of the organization . . . .' Heeding Du Bois's call for '[p]itiless, blatant publicity', the NAACP sought to 'pound and pound and pound the conscience of America.' Attracting the President's support was just one part of this broader goal, one that demanded the full force of the NAACP's organizational strengths and talents. As A. Philip Randolph had argued, 'nothing counts but pressure, more pressure, and still more pressure.'"

At the paper's end: "Although Truman's civil rights reform agenda was continually rebuffed by Congress, his strong advocacy of civil rights enforcement-especially through widely publicized speeches during the 1948 campaign and throughout his second term-demonstrates the complex power of the "rhetorical presidency. The significance of Truman's unprecedented public advocacy on behalf of civil rights will be too hastily dismissed if only institutional criteria for impact are used. The President's words did not have a magically transformative effect, but that does not mean they had no effect. Truman's rhetoric-always emphasizing the need to make the country live up to the promise of its ideals-legitimized the claims of civil rights leaders and left an echo of validation, elevating the stature and power of the civil rights movement in American life and politics and offering hope for further victories ahead."