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• 1 2018-03-14T17:58:15-07:00 Next Step Toward Equality 10 plain 687924 2018-06-17T22:28:07-07:00 Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in April 1945 and Harry Truman became President. Walter White (NAACP and FEBC leader) met with Truman to apprise him of African American affairs, Truman was horrified and quickly appointed the President’s Committee of Civil Rights (PCCR) whose purpose was to secure a “more adequate and effective means and procedures for the protection of civil rights of the American people.” The committee’s report, "To Secure These Rights" called for federal laws against lynching, police brutality, abolition of federal poll taxes, federal protection of voting rights, a fair employment law, and a permanent civil rights commission with the power to enforce. More significantly, it advocated integration of the military, transportation, housing, health care, and education. Additionally, Truman addressed the NAACP at its next convention, becoming the first president to do so. He addressed Congress and issued a bill abolishing poll taxes on federal elections and issued Executive Order 9981 which integrated the military. Truman sought to win over Democrats outside of the South, specifically blacks that had migrated north since WWI. His dedication to equal rights ultimately created a schism in the Democratic Party with Southern Democrats forming the States Rights (Dixiecrat) faction and Truman’s supporters evolving into the liberal faction. In the 1948 presidential election, 2/3 of African American voters supported Truman’s Democratic ticket. While it still did not gain equality for African Americans, the white supremacist hold had definitely weakened. Sensing renewed support from the federal government, the NAACP refocused its energy on tackling segregation. Overturning Plessy v Ferguson was finally achieved in 1954 in the Supreme Court case Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954) when the Court ruled that separate facilities were inherently unequal thus declaring all public schools must be integrated with all deliberate speed. How fast was deliberate? That would be up to the next phase of the Civil Rights Movement​ that would be led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.