Three days after their walkout at Philadelphia, the rebellious Southerners met in Birmingham's red brick municipal auditorium. There they snake-danced under a portrait of Robert E. Lee, flourished Confederate battle flags, and shouted their defiance of Harry Truman and the rest of the Democratic Party.
But the meeting had more lung power than political strength. The delegates, except for those from Mississippi and Alabama, were political outs and has-beens. Most bigwig Southern politicos pointedly stayed away. Even Arkansas' Governor Ben Laney, who had withdrawn as the rebels' favorite son at Philadelphia, remained aloof in his downtown hotel room, contented himself with offering advice.
"This Infamous Program." In the convention hall, Southern oratory boomed out like cannon fire. In the front row, Oklahoma's doddering ex-Governor "Alfalfa Bill" Murray beamed his approval, proudly recalled that "I'm the man who introduced Jim Crow in Oklahoma." Race-baiting Gerald L. K. Smith turned up as a spectator under the pseudonym of S. Goodyear. A group of Mississippi students set up a chant: "To hell with Truman."
With shouts of triumph, the delegates endorsed a "Declaration of Principles." It condemned "this infamous and iniquitous program [of] equal access to all places of public accommodation for persons of all races, colors, creeds and national origin." Then they nominated South Carolina's Governor J. Strom Thurmond for President and Mississippi's Governor Fielding Wright for Vice President.
Not a Bolt. Just what they hoped to accomplish—or how they would go about it—no one seemed to know. So far, only Alabama and Mississippi electors were pledged against Harry Truman. Other states might be persuaded to instruct their electors for the Thurmond-Wright ticket. But most office-holding Democrats would think twice before risking their federal and state patronage by aligning themselves with the irregulars. Said Arkansas' Laney pointedly: "Whatever is done must be done through and by the official Democratic organization in each respective state."
Even the rebels themselves were careful to leave the door ajar. Candidate Wright explained, with careful ambiguity: "This is not a bolt. This is not a fourth party. I say to you that we are the true Democrats of the Southland and these United States." To be doubly sure that there was a way of scrambling back, the rebels agreed to convene again next October to see how they were doing.