The Committee on Civil Rights in 1946

From the revised edition of The Right to Vote by Alexander Keyssar, that I am currently reading.

President Truman created a national "Committee on Civil Rights" in late 1946, when I was two years old.

It was chaired by Charles Wilson, the President of General Electric, the Committee counted among its members two African Americans, two women, two labor leaders, two businessman, and two Southerners (Frank P. Graham, the President of the University of North Carolina, and M. E. Tilley of the Woman's Society of Christian Services).

The extraordinarily honest report entitled "To Secure These Rights", was a milestone in the history of the Federal government's stance toward voting and civil rights. Invoking the precedents of the Revolutionary period and Reconstruction, the report proclaimed that the nation stood once again at a critical junction, although "the right of all qualified citizens to vote" was "considered axiomatic be most Americans", the franchise in fact was "barred to some citizens because of race, to others by institutions or procedures which impede free access to the polls". It singled out for attention the disfranchisement of blacks in the South and Native Americans in several Western States, as well as discriminatory naturalization laws that kept men and women from some nations from becoming citizens.

The Committee's recommendations for addressing these problems were:

- Congressional action to abolish poll taxes as voting prerequisites.

- Protect the rights of "qualified persons" to participate in Federal elections.

- Bar discrimination based on race, color, or "any other unreasonable classification" in State and Federal elections.

- Urged New Mexico and Arizona to enfranchise "their Indian citizens".

- Called for a modification of the naturalization laws "to permit the granting of citizenship without regard to the race, color, or national origin of applicants".

To promote enforcement of these laws and others already on the books, the Committee also recommended strengthening the Civil Rights section of the Justice Department.

More important then these specific proposals was the committee's underlying and deliberate message: "the National Government of the United States must take the lead in safeguard the civil rights of all Americans." Sensitive to the constitutional issues involved and to the political freight of states' rights, the committee nonetheless was calling for Federal guarantees of the right to vote, for what amounted to a naturalization of the franchise.

The report justified Federal action:

- That suffrage limitations and discrimination were producing a "moral erosion" of the nation, particularly in the South.

- That discrimination had negative consequences for the economy.

- That the international interests of the United States were jeopardized by limitations on democracy at home.

Racial discrimination was an Achilles' heal of the American claim to represent truly democratic values. An American diplomat could not forcefully argue for free elections in foreign lands without meeting the challenge that in many sections of America qualified voters did not have free access to the polls.

In the 21th Century, it looks like states have found 21th Century tools to disenfranchise the (great)grandchildren of the Committee members.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker