<P> After Roosevelt died, the new president Harry Truman established a highly visible President's Committee on Civil Rights and issued Executive Order 9981 to end discrimination in the military in 1948 . A group of Southern governors such as Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Fielding L. Wright of Mississippi met to consider the place of Southerners within the Democratic Party . After a tense meeting with DNC chairman and Truman confidant J. Howard McGrath, the Southern governors agreed to convene their own convention in Birmingham if Truman and civil rights supporters emerged victorious at the 1948 Democratic National Convention . In July, the convention re-nominated Truman and adopted a plank proposed by Northern liberals led by Hubert Humphrey calling for civil rights; 35 southern delegates walked out . The move was on to remove Truman's name from the ballot in the southern United States . This political maneuvering required the organization of a new and distinct political party, which the Southern defectors from the Democratic Party chose to brand as the States' Rights Democratic Party . </P> <P> Just days after the 1948 Democratic National Convention, the States' Rights Democrats held their own convention at Municipal Auditorium in Birmingham, Alabama on July 17 . While several leaders from the Deep South such as Strom Thurmond and James Eastland attended, most major Southern Democrats did not attend the conference . Among those absent were Georgia Senator Richard Russell, Jr., who had finished with the second most delegates in the Democratic presidential ballot . </P> <P> Prior to their own States' Rights Democratic Party convention, it was not clear whether the Dixiecrats would seek to field their own candidate or simply try to prevent Southern electors from voting for Truman . Many in the press predicted that if the Dixiecrats did nominate a ticket, Arkansas Governor Benjamin Travis Laney would be the presidential nominee and South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond or Mississippi Governor Fielding L. Wright would be the vice presidential nominee . Laney traveled to Birmingham during the convention, but he ultimately decided that he did not want to join a third party and remained in his hotel during the convention . Thurmond himself had doubts about a third - party bid, but party organizers convinced him to accept the party's nomination, with Fielding Wright as his running mate . Wright's supporters had hoped that Wright would lead the ticket, but Wright deferred to Thurmond, who had greater national stature . The selection of Thurmond received fairly positive reviews from the national press, as Thurmond had pursued relatively moderate policies on civil rights and did not employ the fiery rhetoric used by other segregationist leaders . </P> <P> The States' Rights Democrats did not formally declare themselves as being a new third party, but rather said that they were only "recommending" that state Democratic Parties vote for the Thurmond - Wright ticket . The goal of the party was to win the 127 electoral votes of the Solid South in the hopes of throwing the election to the Representatives . Once in the House, the Dixiecrats hoped to throw their support to whichever party would agree to their segregationist demands . Even if the Republicans won an outright majority of electoral votes (as many expected in 1948), the Dixiecrats hoped that their third - party run would help the South retake its dominant position in the Democratic Party . In implementing their strategy, the States' Rights Democrats faced a complicated set of state election laws, with different states having different processes for choosing presidential electors . The States' Rights Democrats eventually succeeded in making the Thurmond - Wright ticket the official Democratic ticket in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina . In other states, they were forced to run as a third - party ticket . </P>

Who did southern democrats run for president under the newly formed dixiecrat party in 1948