Journalist Samuel G. Freedman visited Westport to discuss his book, "Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights," with Daniel Gross.
During one sweltering week in July 1948, the Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia for its national convention. The most pressing and controversial issue facing the delegates was not whom to nominate for president — the incumbent, Harry Truman, was the presumptive candidate — but whether the Democrats would finally embrace the cause of civil rights and embed it in their official platform. Even under Franklin Roosevelt, the party had dodged the issue in order to keep a bloc of Southern segregationists — the so-called Dixiecrats — in the New Deal coalition.
To the surprise of many, including Humphrey himself, the delegates voted to adopt a meaningful civil rights plank. With no choice but to run on it, Truman seized the opportunity it offered, desegregating the armed forces and in November upsetting the frontrunner Thomas Dewey, a victory due in part to an unprecedented surge of Black voters. Here is a book that celebrates one of the overlooked landmarks of civil rights history, and illuminates the early life and enduring legacy of the man who helped bring it about.
Freedman is an award-winning author, journalist, and educator. He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and has won the National Jewish Book Award and the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Award. His columns for The New York Times about education and religion have received national prizes. He is a professor at Columbia University and has been named the nation’s Outstanding Journalism Educator by the Society of Professional Journalists.
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Recorded August 23, 2023, via Verso Studios at The Westport Library.
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