Over the next several months, Truman did what he could from the White House, issuing an executive order to desegregate the military and committing himself to a civil rights platform, even at the risk of costing him the next election. South Carolina governor Strom Thurmond, the man who had invited Hoover to investigate the Willie Earle case, attempted to ensure that defeat by running for president on the new Dixiecrat ticket, hoping to pull white Southerners away from the Democratic Party in retaliation for Truman’s civil rights stance.[30]
