15. Campaigning on a platform of racial segregation, Strom Thurmond, representing the short-lived Dixiecrat Party, ineffectively sought to cripple the chances of his own Democratic Party’s nominee Harry Truman in 1948
Serving for forty-eight years as a United States Senator from South Carolina, Strom Thurmond eventually retired after becoming the first and only sitting member of Congress to reach the age of one hundred. Despite becoming known chiefly as a Republican, following his switch to the party in support of Barry Goldwater’s opposition to desegregation and the Civil Rights Act in 1964, Thurmond was not always so affiliated. Serving prior to this switch as a member of the Democratic Party, many southern members, including Thurmond who at this time was Governor of South Carolina, feared the party was shifting too radically away from their segregationist beliefs.
Following the nomination of Harry Truman in 1948, who had by executive order desegregated the armed forces, Southern Democrats walked out of the Convention and instead formed the rival “Dixiecrats”. Seeking to win enough electoral votes to force a contingent election in the House of Representatives and extract concessions from either Dewey or Truman, Thurmond was selected to be the face of the anti-Civil Rights movement. Failing in fairly calamitous terms, the Dixiecrats won just 2.4 percent of the popular vote, securing just four states and thirty-nine electoral votes, whilst Truman was elected nevertheless in convincing fashion.