Only 6 percent of White Americans supported immediate civil rights in 1947

Evidence

In October 1947, Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights issued its 178-page report, To Secure These Rights. The commission praised Myrdal’s An American Dilemma, condemned the “moral dry rot” at the heart of America, and recommended civil rights legislation. “Our domestic civil rights shortcomings are a serious obstacle” in US foreign policy, the commission stated, using the now acting secretary of state Dean Acheson as a source. But Gallop pollsters found that only 6 percent of White Americans thought these rights should be secured immediately—only 6 percent, apparently, was antiracist in 1947. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 913

Categorization

• QUESTION: The 6 percent figure is striking — wonder about the exact Gallup question wording and whether ‘immediately securing all these rights’ was a loaded construction that depressed the number.
• CANDY: A single striking number for conversation: in 1947, only 6% of white Americans were antiracist by the standard of wanting rights secured immediately.