APM Presents: The Breakthrough of ’48: When Civil Rights Won the White House

At the 1948 Democratic National Convention, Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey demanded that his party “walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.” Southern Democrats defected, creating their own Dixiecrat Party. But President Harry Truman ran for re-election as the candidate of civil rights, and his dramatic victory set the stage for the landmark civil rights laws of the 1960s.