Potential unmet Hubert H. Humphrey's speech on civil rights at the 1948 Democratic convention marked a turning point in this country. But 50 years later, would HHH feel his vision has been realized as it ought to? THOMAS J. COLLINS STAFF WRITER A father's wisdom. A cup of water. A lingering taste of Depression-era poverty. A gentle nudge to remember the black men lynched in the South. Soul-touches each, these diverse experiences already had helped shape the passionate liberalism of Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey when he rose to address delegates to the Democratic National Convention in the blistering hot Philadelphia Convention Hall on July 14, 1948. Sweating through his plain black suit, his thin black hair matted to his head, Humphrey looked over the crowd that included national party leaders who advised him not to speak but desperately wanted him to -- and those who threatened to walk out of the hall if he did. During the next eight minutes, Minnesota's happy warrior would for the first time engage a national political party in the civil rights battle that continues in fits and starts today. His words helped wrest control of the Democratic Party from Southern states-rights zealots and set the stage for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as well as subsequent gains for minorities in education and employment. Yet were he able to attend the Humphrey Forum's 50th anniversary celebration of his speech on June 23 and 24, Humphrey likely would be uncomfortable with the slow pace of progress toward racial and economic equality. To be sure, black Americans have made enormous strides over the past half-century. Legal segregation has been eliminated, a thriving black middle class has arisen,and blacks have now earned success in all facets of American life. Still, 30 years after the 1968 Kerner Commission report on the 1967 riots concluded that ``our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white -- separate and unequal,'' the gap has grown wider and the challenges more formidable, according to a Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation report to be released in July. For those whose cause Humphrey championed in Philadelphia in 1948, the past three decades have been troublesome, the ``Millennium Breach'' report notes. According to the study, child poverty has spiraled upward, wages for minorities have not kept pace with their white counterparts, urban public schools have become more segregated and unproductive, and one in three African-American men are in prison, on probation or on parole. A father's wisdom ``My friends -- my fellow Democrats -- I ask for you a calm consideration of our historic opportunity.`` Humphrey's ground-breaking Fair Employment Practices ordinance, which helped remove employment barriers for minorities and ended segregation in Minneapolis hotels and restaurants, was a little more than a year old when he tried to sell the idea to the nation. The timing, however, couldn't have been worse for President Harry S Truman, who felt his Democratic support in the South slipping away. To mollify Southerners, Truman's advisers proposed mimicking a weak civil rights plank adopted four years earlier. But Humphrey, against the advice of some of his closest advisers, refused to fall in step with his shaky president and party. He was determined to lobby for a strong civil rights statement. After days of battle in Philadelphia, however, his resolve weakened a bit. The stakes were high. He didn't want to split a party that was already crumbling under the weight of civil rights clashes throughout the county. Alienating national party officials might jeopardize the tenuous coalition of the farmer and labor parties in Minnesota and end his political future. Even his close friend Orville Freeman, who would later become Minnesota governor, thought a challenge to the party on civil rights would get Humphrey ``laughed out of the hall.'' Still, Freeman urged him to proceed. (Ironically, the sons of these two close friends -- Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III and Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman -- are now vying to become the next governor of Minnesota). Shuttling back and forth early in the convention between a rented fraternity house that served as his strategy center and the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel where the Democratic platform committee was presiding, Humphrey was pulled in contradictory directions -- nodding to emphatic and emotional pleas, lowering his ear to private messages. As his mind whirled, he met with his father Hubert in the Bellevue. As they had often done when the younger Hubert was growing up in Depression-era South Dakota, they spoke of principles and politics. ``His father had a feeling that if Hubert made the speech he would cut himself off from national politics,'' says Arthur Naftalin, a close friend and aide of Humphrey. ``Yet his father was very firm that it was a matter of principle,'' said Naftalin, 80. The elder Hubert told his son he would stand behind him no matter what and that South Dakota's nine delegates were behind him. With little sleep, Humphrey took his place on the stage the morning of July 14. The eyes of the political world were on him, as the people for whom he would speak strained their ears to hear through the crackles of radios back home in Minnesota. A cup of water ``. . . Let me say at the outset that this proposal is made with no single region, no single class, no single racial or religious group in mind. All regions and all states have shared in the precious heritage of American freedom. All states and all regions have at least some infringement of that freedom -- all people all groups have been the victims of discrimination . . .'' -- Humphrey's opening remarks to the convention Four years before Humphrey made his way to Philadelphia, African-Americans could not stay in Minneapolis hotels or eat in hotel restaurants. Blacks attending the University of Minnesota could not stay in the dormitories, recalls W. Harry Davis, a former president of the Minneapolis branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. And while national headliners like Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson, Duke Ellington and Count Basie drew huge white crowds to Northrop Auditorium, black Americans stayed well out of sight at the Phyllis Wheatley or Hallie Q. Brown community centers for African-Americans. ``It made you feel pretty angry as a young person,'' said Davis, 75. It also disturbed Humphrey deeply, and he vowed to open up the hotels and restaurants during his 1944 Minneapolis mayoral campaign. Davis, a waiter at the time, believed in Humphrey the politician. The two men were able to bridge the racial gap over a glass of water at the Phyllis Wheatley House. The chance meeting changed Davis' life forever and seemed to strengthen Humphrey's resolve before the convention, Davis said. ``I was on staff and served as one of the waiters for the event,'' says Davis, a former director of the Minneapolis Civil Rights Commission. ``We basically would flip a coin to see who would wait on the head table. I won.'' Davis took care of Humphrey and his tablemate that day, Nellie Stone Johnson, a labor organizer who later would help Humphrey consolidate the Farmer and Labor parties to form the DFL. He asked Humphrey if he wanted a glass of water on the dais where he would address the crowd. An appreciative Humphrey thanked Davis after the gathering and predicted Davis would someday become a politician. Humphrey was true to his word. In 1971, as Minneapolis mayoral candidate Harry Davis gulped hard and prepared to campaign in Northeast Minneapolis, a car pulled up and two white men got out. It was second nature for Davis to watch his back, after receiving death threats while serving as a member of the Minneapolis School Board during court-ordered desegregation and as president of the Minneapolis NAACP. But he instantly relaxed when he recognized the men: U.S. Rep. Don Fraser and Sen. Hubert Humphrey. ``They walked with me and there was total acceptance at every home,'' Davis said, although their support didn't translate into enough votes to win the race. A taste of poverty ``. . . We are here as Democrats. But more important, as Americans -- and I firmly believe that as men concerned with our country's future, we must specify in our platform the guarantees which I have mentioned . . . '' The Bellevue Stratford Hotel is an imposing French Classical Revival structure, probably best known today as the site of the first ``Legionnaire's Disease'' outbreak. It was on the top floor that Humphrey debated civil rights as a national party platform delegate. ``The debate then became so intense we were afraid that if I voted they would smell something was wrong because it meant Minnesota had three votes on the committee,'' says Naftalin, who listened to the debate. ``If I left, my credentials would be challenged, so I sat quietly through eight hours of debate.'' During one of those sessions in the wee hours of July 13, 1948, Humphrey denounced the administration draft as ``a bunch of generalities'' and a ``sellout to states rights,'' writes Carl Solberg in his book, ``Hubert Humphrey: A Biography.'' Sen. Scott Lucas, a senior stalwart from Illinois then asked, ``Who does this pipsqueak think he is?'' Economist and author John Kenneth Galbraith recalls that others inside the room held Humphrey in much higher regard. ``He was not just the mayor of Minneapolis at the time. He saw himself -- and we saw him -- as a citizen of the whole republic,'' Galbraith said. ``His speech was seen not only as an act of political righteousness but a courageous act of political wisdom.'' In the days before Humphrey's convention speech, Galbraith, author Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and other civil rights advocates talked strategy with him at the Phi Kappa Sigma house on the University of Pennsylvania campu. Americans for Democratic Action, which counted Eleanor Roosevelt among its founding members, had rented the house. About 125 people jammed into the dining and living rooms of the house on the evening of July 13, after Humphrey and his supporters overwhelmingly lost the civil rights battle with the national platform committee. Humphrey, who promised to deliver a minority report to the full convention the following day, was skittish. ``He was afraid,'' said Leon Shull, 84, a former national ADA director. In 1948 he was an observer at the frat house, and today volunteers with the ADA in Washington, D.C. ''My biggest fear was that he would not make the speech.'' A gentle nudge ``There are those who say -- this issue of civil rights is an infringement on states rights. The time has arrived for the Democratic party to get out of the shadow of state's rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.'' Just before he entered the hall -- still unsure exactly what he would say -- Humphrey felt a tug on his arm from his friend and ally, Nellie Stone Johnson. Born in Lakeville, steeped in labor and African-American politics since she was 4 years old, Johnson had no trouble speaking her mind. Regardless of what you say, she told Humphrey, ``we have to stop them from hanging black males from every tree in the South when they disagree with a white man.'' Sitting in a lounge at the Minneapolis high-rise where she now lives, Johnson, 92, smiles as she recalls Humphrey's answer. ``I remember Hubert in his high-pitched voice saying, `We can't have that, now can we?''' She knew then that he would give the speech. ``The time had come for this issue,'' she says, adjusting the sleeve of her blue workshirt with the words ``AFL-CIO Minnesota'' stitched on the pocket. As an alternate to the 1948 convention, Johnson was not allowed inside the convention hall. She listened on a radio nearby as the mayor of a provincial Midwestern town raised the national delegates to their feet with these words: ``People -- human beings -- this is the issue of the 20th century. People -- all kinds and sorts of people -- look to America for leadership -- for help -- for guidance. . . . That path has already led us through many valleys of the shadow of death. Now is the time to recall those who were left on that path of American freedom.'' Galbraith and Naftalin in the convention hall, and Davis, from his chair in the Phyllis Wheatley House in Minneapolis, all cheered, in what Naftalin described recently as a ``state of bewildered euphoria.'' A few hours later a group of Southern delegates led by South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond walked out of the hall. They formed their own party, the Dixiecrats, and nominated Thurmond, now a Republican senator from that state, for president. Slow progress ``. . .For all of us here, for the millions who have sent us, for the whole 2 billion members of the human family -- our land is now, more than ever, the last best hope on earth. I know that we can -- I know that we shall -- begin here the fuller realization of that hope -- that promise of a land where all men are free and equal, and each man uses his freedom and equality wisely and well.'' But after Humphrey's convention address, African-Americans made little progress in employment. Matthew Little, 75, former Minneapolis NAACP president, still bristles at the wall of ignorance that prevented him from landing a job with the Minneapolis Fire Department in 1949. After scoring perfectly on the physical and written tests, he faced three retired fire captains in an oral exam. A candidate then was required to pass each part with a score of 75 percent or better. ``They asked me three questions: Why did I want to become a firefighter? Why did I want to leave my present job as a substitute mail clerk to become a full-time firefighter? And did I have my wife's consent to do the hazardous work required of a firefighter? Little's score on the oral exam was 74 percent, which meant he failed. ``I finally confronted one of them and he told me why I couldn't pass,'' Little recalls. ``He said, `Listen, young man. I spent 32 years as a fireman. We have to live and sleep together, and work as a team. So this race thing will not work in the firehouses until they can segregate them. And that's not about to happen.' '' Humphrey later worked out a deal with the Civil Service Commission where the average of a candidate's scores on all three tests was 75 percent or above -- a sign to Little and others that the future vice president meant what he said in 1948. ``Humphrey broke the mold with that speech in 1948 by admonishing the Democratic leaders in the kind of rhetoric that only he could use,'' Little says. ``But he would not be pleased with the progress made in civil rights. It would be one of his biggest disappointments. I know it is mine.