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SPRING / SUMMER 2022
TRU MAGAZINE
TRUMAN’S BOLD STRIDES FOR CIVIL RIGHTS By Richard Gergel Author of Unexampled Courage: The Blinding of Sgt. Isaac Woodard and the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring The following is a transcript of the online program “Freedom from Fear,” presented in honor of the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9808.
As World War II ended with the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, there was a great sense of optimism about America’s capacity to spread democracy and liberty across the globe.
The newly-installed president, Harry S. Truman, along with leaders in his administration, hoped the nation would now address the discriminatory conditions – including government-mandated racial segregation – confronting African Americans residing in the South. In the year following the end of World War II, as 900,000 African American soldiers returned home, most of them to the rural South, numerous racial incidents arose as
returning veterans challenged the racial status quo. Having fought for their country, they felt they were entitled to a piece of America’s prosperity and the right to participate in its government. As the United States’ post-war conflict with the Soviet Union emerged, pitting America’s model of democracy against Soviet-style communism, our country’s enemies widely publicized lynchings and other racial incidents as evidence of American hypocrisy.