It's not like Eisenhower was particularly progressive on civil rights anyway. He privately opposed Brown and did little to expand voting rights. Even dragged his feet during the Little Rock Crisis to the extent that Louis Armstrong of all people was saying he had "no guts" and was "two-faced"!
Stevenson certainly would have done more on civil rights had he been elected.
I guess that’s why Adam Clayton Powell bucked his own party and endorsed Eisenhower in 1956. Personally, based on what each candidate said about civil rights during the campaigns of 1952 and 1956, I can only conclude that Stevenson was far more cowardly on the issue than Eisenhower.
Adam Clayton Powell, while being a black representative kinda sucked, " Powell, hearing of planned civil rights marches at the Democratic Convention, which could embarrass the party or candidate, threatened to accuse Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. of having a homosexual relationship with Bayard Rustin unless the marches were cancelled."
