This is for the benefit of all those who don't think party platforms matter. Below is the text of Hubert Humphrey's speech to the 1948 Democratic National Convention in which he persuaded the party to put civil rights into the platform. Strom Thurmond walked out of the party and ran for President as a third party candidate on a segregationist platform.

Fifteen years later President Kennedy would sign the Civil Rights act and seventeen years later President Johnson would sign the voting rights act. The 1948 Democratic Platform was an important part that process. Read more…