1948

In July 1948, the Mississippi delegation walked out of the Democratic National Convention after the party adopted a civil rights platform. President Harry S. Truman had already alienated most white Southerners with his earlier desegregation of the armed services. Prior to the convention state convention delegates pledged to fight

for candidates for President and vice-president who take an open and positive stand for States’ Rights and against this so-called “Civil Rights” legislation. Upon our failure to attain these objectives at the National Convention in Philadelphia, I am 100-per cent for the holding of a separate States’ Rights Democratic Convention and for the nomination of true and loyal States’ Rights Democrats for President and for Vice-president of the United States.

In March, the Mississippi State Democratic Executive Committee passed a similar resolution later endorsed by the state legislature.

The States’ Rights Party nominated Strom Thurmond for president and Mississippi Governor Fielding L. Wright as his running mate. This ticket carried the Magnolia State’s nine electoral votes as demonstrated below in the tables of the Mississippi Secretary of State report on the general election. Despite widespread prediction that the Democratic split would result in a Republican victory, Truman remained in the White House for another four years.