ABSTRACT
During the Reconstruction of 1865 to 1877, Congress challenged the color line by enacting laws and proposing constitutional amendments, which were quickly ratified, that ended slavery and sought a significant degree of racial equality. The Second Reconstruction developed differently from the first, for this time all three branches of the federal government contributed. When Truman championed civil rights while seeking the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1948, he may well have supposed that he would gain more political support than he would lose. Veterans of color returned home from World War II determined to exercise democratic rights for which the war against fascism had supposedly been fought. During the War America’s domestic propaganda stressed racial “tolerance” in opposition to the racist policies of its military opponents, especially Nazi Germany. In the post-war South, however, armed white men blocked black veterans’ access to voting registrars and ballot boxes.
