Native Fascism: Evansville’s 1948 Wallace Riot

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In April 1948, Progressive Party presidential candidate Henry A. Wallace arrived in Indiana to much controversy. The conservative state did not welcome Wallace, and veterans’ organizations actively organized to disrupt his speaking engagements. On April 6, at the Progressive Party’s Evansville campaign event, a mob attacked Wallace supporters, causing injuries and pushing the isolated town into the national spotlight. In the wake of the riot, a local professor was fired for his involvement in the Wallace campaign, and the radical CIO Local 813 became the subject of U. S. House committee hearings. Anticommunist hysteria gripped the Evansville community. What happened in Evansville on April 6 was part of a populist fascism in the United States propelled by anti-communism and enacted by veterans’ organizations. While national politicians dominate histories of anti-communism, some of the greatest damage done during the 1940s and 1950s occurred when other Americans, specifically veterans’ groups, violated the constitutional rights of their fellow citizens.