Abstract: This chapter explores the politics behind the most ambitious postwar effort to promote a consensual vision of the nation: the Freedom Train of the late 1940s. Conceived in office of Attorney General Tom Clark, orchestrated by advertising and movie executives, and financed by America’s largest corporations, the Freedom Train and accompanying media blitz portrayed a nation at once unified, inclusive and consensual. But this veneer of unity concealed an ongoing contest over America’s core values—a contest symbolized by the decision to downplay the controversial word “democracy” in the campaign. Under the banner of “freedom,” the train's organizers promoted interfaith cooperation and business-labor harmony, even as they arranged to have leftists who protested the train arrested. But as the train entered the South, those who had hoped to portray a nation devoid of social strife found themselves drawn into a head-on conflict with blacks and southern civic leaders over the issue of segregation. (151)

Keywords: Freedom Train, Tom Clark, consensual, unity, democracy, interfaith, business-labor harmony, segregation,