Page "Hubert Humphrey" Paragraph 12

A diverse coalition opposed this tepid platform, including anti-communist liberals like Humphrey, Paul Douglas and John Shelley, all of whom would later become known as leading progressives in the Democratic Party.

These liberals proposed adding a " minority plank " to the party platform that would commit the Democratic Party to a more aggressive opposition to racial segregation.

The minority plank called for federal legislation against lynching, an end to legalized school segregation in the South, and ending job discrimination based on skin color.

Also strongly backing the liberal civil rights plank were Democratic urban bosses like Ed Flynn of the Bronx, who promised the votes of northeastern delegates to Humphrey's platform, Jacob Arvey of Chicago, and David Lawrence of Pittsburgh.

Although viewed as being conservatives, these urban bosses believed that Northern Democrats could gain many black votes by supporting civil rights, and that losses among anti-civil rights Southern Democrats would be relatively small.

Though many scholars have suggested that labor unions were leading figures in this coalition, no significant labor leaders attended the convention, with the exception of the heads of the Congress of Industrial Organizations Political Action Committee ( CIOPAC ), Jack Kroll and A. F.

Whitney.