The first
Freedom Train was proposed in April 1946 by
Attorney General Tom C. Clark, who believed that Americans had begun taking the principles of liberty for granted in the post-war years. The idea was adopted by a coalition that included
Paramount Pictures and the
Advertising Council, which had just changed its name from "War Advertising Council".
Plans and messaging Thomas D'Arcy Brophy (of the advertising firm Kenyon & Eckhardt) described the
Freedom Train as "a campaign to sell America to Americans". The Advertising Council planned an assortment of other events to accompany the train, including messages in radio programs, comic books, and films. In each city where the train stopped, they organized a "Rededication Week" for public celebrations of the United States. In February 1947, the group formed the "American Heritage Foundation" and named Brophy its president. The Board of Trustees for the new foundation included:
Frederick D. Patterson, president of
Tuskegee Institute and founder of the
United Negro College Fund was named as a trustee in October 1947.
American Federation of Labor president
William Green and
Congress of Industrial Organizations president
Philip Murray were vice presidents of the Foundation. The
National Archives supplied the train with key documents, while, as archivist Elizabeth Hamer noted in August 1947, "Hollywood, chiefly, is putting up the capital for this exhibit." The Foundation rejected the list of documents proposed by the National Archives, which included documents such as
Executive Order 8802. Contrary to the Justice Department's wishes, the Foundation excluded
collective bargaining from the list of citizens' rights. In the final roster, the only document about black history was the
Emancipation Proclamation—and even in this case, accompanying commentary focused on the white president Abraham Lincoln who issued the document. While preparing for the tour, the planners decided to downplay comparisons of the United States with the Nazis, as well as direct calls for foreign intervention. Instead, they sought to craft a shared ideology for Americans. Clark wrote, "Indoctrination in democracy is the essential catalytic agent needed to blend our various groups into one American family. Without it, we could not sustain the continuity of our way of life. In its largest sense, preaching Americanism is an affirmative declaration of our faith in ourselves". The
Freedom Train displayed exhibits such as "Good Citizen", which portrayed men wearing suits. Exhibits also defined American freedoms in terms of consumerism and boasted of superior commodity production. For women (more often referred to as "girls" or "sisters"), good citizenship was defined in terms of clothing, participation in certain acceptable community activities, and raising children.
Execution An
ALCO PA diesel-electric locomotive pulled the seven-car train, which carried the original versions of the
United States Constitution, the
Declaration of Independence, the
Truman Doctrine, and the
Bill of Rights on its tour of more than 300 cities in all 48 states. As
Alaska and
Hawaii did not gain statehood until 1959, this train toured all of the U.S. states that existed at the time. It was the first train to visit all 48 contiguous states (the
Rexall Train in 1936 had come close, but missed Nevada). Top Marines were selected to attend the training and the famous documents. Col. Robert F. Scott led the Marine contingent. According to attendees, Mark and Mary Ellen Murphy: "With polite and firm prodding, the Marines hurried through as many as 1200 persons an hour, giving each an average of three seconds to look at each exhibit. As they shuffled through the beige-and-green cars, they listened to regional and patriotic music played over a public address system and to a 'move faster' exhortation by a suave Marine voice which came through the speaker every time a record changed." The
Freedom Train even had an official song, written by
Irving Berlin and performed by
Bing Crosby and the
Andrews Sisters. The train's first public display stop occurred in
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, on September 17, 1947. From there, the train traveled in a route that took it up to
New England, down the Atlantic coast to
Florida, across the nation's southern states to
California, up the Pacific coast to
Washington, then across the northern states to
Minnesota. After touring the perimeter of the nation, the train moved inland from Minnesota to
Colorado, then
Kansas and
Missouri, north to
Wisconsin, then south to the
Ohio River valley, north again to Michigan, and finally east to
New Jersey. The train's official tour ended on January 22, 1949, in
Washington, D.C., nearly three months after its last public display on October 26, 1948, in
Havre de Grace, Maryland. A notable stop on the train's itinerary was its appearance at the
Chicago Railroad Fair from July 5–9 that year. The American Heritage Foundation gave licenses to some vendors to sell Freedom Train gear, such as books and postcards, while barring unauthorized merchants from selling other Freedom paraphernalia. The white press favored the train with mostly positive coverage. One exception was John O'Donnell, who commented in the Washington
Times-Herald: "... we understand a committee headed by Winthrop Alrich, son-in-law of
John D. Rockefeller Jr., is launching the campaign. Their wayward historical bus is scheduled to depart with great huzzahs from the White House ... Hold on to your hats, boys, you're going for another ride, and remember to keep the moths out of that uniform." In the view of the Advertising Council, the
Freedom Train succeeded, especially through the local rallies and media messages which accompanied it. This multifaceted project thus became a model for future efforts in the Cold War.
Conflict over segregation The announcement of the
Freedom Train plan on May 22, 1947, provoked spirited commentary on the state of blacks’ freedom in America. Black American poet
Langston Hughes wrote a critical poem, "Freedom Train", in which he described the train passing through the
segregated southern states, where black and white passengers rode in separate cars. The poem was famously recorded by
Paul Robeson. Facing a public-relations backlash and seeking to brand the
Western Bloc as freer than its counterpart, the Truman administration announced in September 1947 a policy of desegregation for the train, scheduled to depart in only two weeks. Mayor James J. Pleasants Jr., of
Memphis, Tennessee, announced that black and white people would be allowed to visit the Freedom Train only during separate visiting hours. (Pleasants acted with the support of their boss
Edward H. Crump, the most influential figure in Memphis politics during the first half of the 20th century.) When
Freedom Train organizers then canceled the train's planned stop in Memphis, Pleasants responded that segregated viewing hours were necessary to avert "race trouble" that would inevitably result from interracial "jostling and pushing". To
Freedom Train stops in other cities, the mayor's office sent undercover agents, who reported that, first, some other southern cities had enforced segregation during viewing, and that white patrons of the
Freedom Train elsewhere had disliked the presence of Black Americans. In
Montgomery, Alabama, agitation by
Edgar Nixon and
Rosa Parks resulted in the appointment of black members to the local
Freedom Train planning committee and a promise of desegregation during the train's visit. In
Birmingham, Alabama, protest from public safety commissioner
Bull Connor insisted that black and white people would wait for the train in separate lines and take turns entering. The idea behind the "Birmingham Plan" was that whites and blacks would technically be on board the train at the same time, without having to encounter each other directly. Under pressure, Connors and his colleague James E. Morgan stated: Our segregation law is for the protection of the white and black races in the city, and for the prevention of disorders. . . . It is not a mantle to be set aside at the instance of this or that visitor to the city. If those in charge of the Freedom Train should see fit to bring it to Birmingham, they will be welcomed cordially, but cannot expect that either they or visitors to the
Freedom Train will be exempt from our laws. Under pressure and threat of boycott by various organizations, including the
NAACP, the American Heritage Foundation also canceled the
Freedom Train's appearance in Birmingham. The episode was somewhat embarrassing for collaborationist local black leaders Ernest Taggart and I. J. Israel, who defended their support of the segregated
Freedom Train visit in the spirit of compromise. Public critique of the train continued during the tour. The
Sunday Oregonian published a two-page section titled "No Premium Fares on
Freedom Train—But Actually Some Citizens Still Ride Second Class", detailing persistent discrimination and violence against black Americans. These and other rumblings were described by FBI director
J. Edgar Hoover as "Negro Communist" agitation. ==1975–76
American Freedom Train==