It was on 23 July, in 1948, that the Progressive Party opened it’s Presidential nominating Convention in Philadelphia, PA. The Party had been formed in response to what were viewed as the anti-New Deal policies of President Truman.
The Party would nominate former Vice-President Henry Wallace for President, and Idaho Senator Glenn Taylor in the VP spot. The ticket was decidedly anti-Cold War and would arouse the Anti-Communist passions of many Americans, particularly in the US South, where the pro-Civil Rights ticket would often be met with hurling tomatoes, to which Henry Wallace once famously replied, “I wish they would have used the vegetables to feed the children”.
Below is a short newsreel summarizing the convention activity of that summer…