Humphrey for Senator

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Hubert Humphrey was first elected to the United States Senate as a representative of Minnesota in 1948. Humphrey's proposal to end racial segregation was included in the Democratic party platform at the national convention in the same year. Before he became a politician, Humphrey worked in his father's pharmacy, but dreamed of becoming an academic. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1939 from the University of Minnesota followed by his master's degree from Louisiana State University in 1940, and then returned to the University of Minnesota as an instructor and a doctoral student. Humphrey then became involved in local politics and did not finish his PhD. Despite pressure from then-President Harry Truman's aides to keep civil rights issues out of the Convention in 1948, Humphrey represented a minority portion of the Democratic Party when he spoke, calling for federal legislation against lynching, stopping legal segregation in the schools of the South, and ending job discrimination based on skin color. The minority platform was adopted, and Truman was aided in his re-election bid by gaining support from black voters. 

As a Senator, Humphrey introduced the Peace Corps bill in 1957, and a bill in 1960 to establish a National Peace Agency. He was the lead author of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and served as Democratic whip in the same year. Humphrey's colleagues nicknamed him "The Happy Warrior". When Lyndon B. Johnson inherited the presidency following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, he chose Humphrey to be his running mate against Republican Barry Goldwater. The Johnson/Humphrey ticket was elected in a landslide in 1964. Humphrey's bid for President in 1968 was unsuccessful, but he returned to the Senate in 1971, serving until his death in 1978.