Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

by Ibram X. Kendi

only 6 percent of White Americans thought these rights should be secured immediately—only 6 percent, apparently, were antiracist in 1947.14 On February 2, 1948, Truman urged Congress to implement the recommendations of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, regardless of the lack of support among White Americans. “[The] position of the United States in the world today” made civil rights “especially urgent,” Truman stressed. The backlash was significant. One Texas representative kicked off his winning US Senate campaign by rallying 10,000 supporters in Austin to view Truman’s civil rights proposals as “a farce and a sham—an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty.”