This absolute loyalty to the Democratic Party – so strong that even Catholic Al Smith in 1928 received over ninety percent of South Carolina's limited vote total at the same time as five former Confederate states voted for Herbert Hoover[5] – began to break down with Henry A. Wallace's appointment as Vice President and the 1943 Detroit race riots.

Tension widened much further when new President Harry Truman, himself a Southerner from Missouri, had described to him a number of horrifying lynchings and racial violence against black veterans, most crucially the beating and blinding of Isaac Woodard three hours after being discharged from the army.

[8] Truman, previously viewed as no friend of civil rights, came to believe that racial violence against blacks in the South was a threat to the United States' image abroad and its ability to win the Cold War against the radically egalitarian rhetoric of Communism.

[10] In South Carolina, Dixiecrats completely controlled the situation and achieved this[11] as early as the state's May presidential primary.

[12] Consequently, Thurmond and Mississippi Governor Fielding Wright were listed as the official "Democratic" nominees.