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Samuel G. Freedman

Samuel G. Freedman is an award-winning professor and columnist. He is the author of nine books, including the newly published Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights.

President Harry S. Truman speaks from the dais at the Convention Hall as Kentucky Senator Alben Barkley (seated onstage in black suit) looks on during the 1948 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

The 1948 Democratic National Convention Is the Missing Link in Civil Rights History

Civil rights activists failed to expel an all-white, segregationist delegation. But their efforts foreshadowed later milestones in the fight for equality