In recent days, the 1948 Democratic convention has entered the national consciousness, thanks to Trent Lott, Republican senator from Mississippi.

Segregation was the defining issue in 1948. President Harry S. Truman was becoming a supporter of civil rights, at a time when the armed forces were segregated and blacks were prevented from voting in many states.

In July, at the convention in Philadelphia, Southerners were fighting for segregation by insisting that matters of civil rights should be left to the states. Northerners and Westerners were supporting civil rights, backing proposals that called on Congress to guarantee equal opportunity for all. The civil rights platform won out, and Truman was nominated to run for president. The entire Mississippi delegation and half the Alabama delegation walked out.

Dissident Southerners held another convention, nominating Strom Thurmond, then the Democratic governor of South Carolina, to run for president. Truman won. In 1964, Thurmond left the Democrats and became a Republican.

"I want to say this about my state," Lott said Dec. 5, celebrating Thurmond's 100th birthday. "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either."

Lott has been apologizing ever since, saying he didn't intend to endorse segregation. But his words have summoned that earlier time, its hatreds and its passions. And they remind that a famous speech emerged from the Democratic convention. It was delivered by Hubert H. Humphrey, then the mayor of Minneapolis, later senator and vice president. He made an impassioned argument for civil rights, and his words swayed the delegates and made Humphrey a national figure.

Here are excerpts from Humphrey's speech:

. . . . Because of my profound belief that we have a challenging task to do here - because good conscience, decent morality, demands it - I feel I must rise at this time to support ... a report that the people of this country can and will understand and a report that they will enthusiastically acclaim on the great issue of civil rights.

Now let me say at the outset that this proposal is made with no single region . . . no single class, no single racial or religious groups in mind.

All of the regions of this country, all of the states have shared in the precious heritage of American freedom. All the states and all the regions have seen at least some infringements of that freedom - all people ... all people, white and black, all groups, all racial groups have been the victims at times in this nation of, let me say, vicious discrimination.

The masterly statement of our keynote speaker, the distinguished United States Senator from Kentucky, Alben Barkley, made that point with great force. Speaking of the founder of our party, Thomas Jefferson, he said this ... :

"[Jefferson] did not proclaim that all the white, or the black, or the red, or the yellow men are equal; that all Christian or Jewish men are equal; that all Protestant and all Catholic men are equal; that all rich or poor men are equal; that all good and bad men are equal. What he declared was that all men are equal; and the equality which he proclaimed was the equality in the right to enjoy the blessings of free government in which they may participate and to which they have given their support."

... We have made progress, we have made great progress, in every part of this country. We've made great progress in the South, we've made it in the West, in the North, and in the East, but we must now focus the direction of that progress toward the realization of a full program of civil rights for all. ...

We can be proud that we can be guided by the courageous trail blazing of two great Democratic presidents. We can be proud of the fact that our great and beloved immortal leader Franklin Roosevelt gave us guidance. And we can be proud of the fact - we can be proud of the fact - that Harry Truman has had the courage to give to the people of America the new Emancipation Proclamation.

... Sure, we're here as Democrats. But my good friends, we're here as Americans, we're here as the believers in the principle and the ideology of democracy, and I firmly believe that as men concerned with our country's future, we must specify in our platform guarantees which we have mentioned in the minority report.

Yes, this is far more than a party matter. Every citizen has a stake in the emergence of the United States as a leader in a free world. That world is being challenged by the world of slavery. For us to play our part effectively, we must be in a morally sound position.

We can't use a double standard - there's no room for double standards in American politics - for measuring our own and other people's policies. Our demands for democratic practices in other lands will be no more effective than the guarantees of those practiced in our own country.

Friends, delegates, I do not believe that there can be any compromise on the guarantee of civil rights which I have mentioned in the minority report. In spite of my desire for unanimous agreement on the entire platform, in spite of my desire to see everybody here in honest and unanimous agreement, there are some matters which I think must be stated clearly and without qualification. There can be no hedging - the newspaper headlines are wrong. There will be no hedging, and there will be no watering down - if you please - of the instruments and the principles of the civil rights program.

To those who say, my friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years late. To those who say, to those who say this civil rights program is an infringement on states' rights, I say this: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.

People, people - human beings - this is the issue of the 20th century. People of all kinds ... are looking to America for leadership, and they're looking to America for precept and example. My good friends, my fellow Democrats, I ask you for calm consideration of our historic opportunity.

Let us ... forget the evil passions, the blindness of the past. In these times of world economic, political and spiritual crisis, we cannot, we must not, turn from the path so plainly before us. That path has already lead us through many valleys of the shadow of death.

Now is the time to recall those who were left on that path of American freedom. For all of us here ... for the whole 2 billion members of the human family - our land is now, more than ever before, the last best hope on earth. ...

My good friends, I ask my party, I ask the Democratic Party, to march down the high road of progressive democracy. I ask this convention, to say in unmistakable terms that we proudly hail, and we courageously support, our president and leader Harry Truman in his great fight for civil rights in America.