Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman
National Archives and Records Administration. Office of Presidential Libraries. · Public domain · source
Name	Harry S. Truman
Caption	Official portrait, 1945
Order	33rd
Office	President of the United States
Term start	April 12, 1945
Term end	January 20, 1953
Vicepresident	None (1945–1949), Alben W. Barkley (1949–1953)
Predecessor	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Successor	Dwight D. Eisenhower
Order2	34th
Office2	Vice President of the United States
Term start2	January 20, 1945
Term end2	April 12, 1945
President2	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Predecessor2	Henry A. Wallace
Successor2	Alben W. Barkley
Jr/sr3	United States Senator
State3	Missouri
Term start3	January 3, 1935
Term end3	January 17, 1945
Predecessor3	Roscoe C. Patterson
Successor3	Frank P. Briggs
Birth date	8 May 1884
Birth place	Lamar, Missouri
Death date	26 December 1972
Death place	Kansas City, Missouri
Party	Democratic
Spouse	Bess Wallace, June 28, 1919
Children	Margaret Truman
Occupation	Farmer, haberdasher, Judge
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States Army
Serviceyears	1905–1911 (Missouri National Guard), 1917–1919 (Army Reserve), 1920–1953 (Officers' Reserve Corps)
Rank	Colonel
Unit	129th Field Artillery Regiment
Battles	World War I

Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. His presidency, which began upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, was a pivotal period for the nation's commitment to civil and political rights. While his record is complex, Truman's executive actions, particularly the desegregation of the United States Armed Forces, marked a significant, if contentious, federal step toward racial equality during the early stages of the modern Civil Rights Movement.

Early life and political career

Harry S. Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri, in 1884 and raised in Independence, Missouri. His early career included work as a farmer, a haberdasher, and a county judge in Jackson County. His political outlook was shaped by the Democratic Party machine of Thomas J. Pendergast in Kansas City, which emphasized practical governance and patronage. Elected to the United States Senate in 1934, Truman gained national prominence during World War II as chairman of the Truman Committee, which investigated wartime contracting and inefficiency. His selection as Vice President in 1944 placed him in line for the presidency. Throughout this period, Truman's public stance on civil rights was largely conventional for a Southern Democrat of his era, focusing on economic issues over social transformation.

Presidency and civil rights advocacy

Upon assuming the presidency in April 1945, Truman faced the immense tasks of concluding World War II, managing the onset of the Cold War, and reconverting the domestic economy. The issue of civil rights gained urgency due to several factors: the service of African Americans in the war, increasing activism by groups like the NAACP, and highly publicized incidents of racial violence, such as the 1946 Moore's Ford lynchings in Georgia. In 1946, Truman established the President's Committee on Civil Rights. The committee's landmark 1947 report, To Secure These Rights, provided a comprehensive indictment of racial discrimination and recommended sweeping federal reforms, including anti-lynching laws, abolition of the poll tax, and desegregation. In February 1948, Truman sent a special message to Congress urging the adoption of these measures, marking the first time a president had so forcefully placed civil rights on the national legislative agenda. This advocacy, while popular with Northern liberals and black voters, provoked a fierce backlash from the States' Rights Democratic Party during the 1948 presidential election.

Desegregation of the armed forces

Frustrated by congressional inaction on his broader civil rights agenda, Truman used his executive authority to effect change within the federal government. His most consequential action was Executive Order 9981, issued on July 26, 1948. The order declared it to be "the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin" and established the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. While the order did not use the word "desegregation," it was unequivocal, the (often the United States' 'and the United States' 1948, 33rd, the. 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