Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, 1941-1954
Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, 1941-1954
KEY THEMES & ISSUES
1. Impact of WW2 on US Race Relations
2. Impact of Cold War on US Race Relations
3. The battle over Jim Crow in the South
Race & WW2, 1
Black Participation & Protest
Segregated Units
Tuskegee Airmen
Discrimination in defense work
Race riots
Alexandria, La, 1942
Harlem & Detroit, 1943
War experience & rhetoric changed some white racial attitudes; spurred black protest vs. discrimination
Race & WW2, 2
“Double V” Campaign
March on Washington Movement, 1941-
A. Philip Randolph
FDR’s Executive Order 8802: Fair Employment Practices Commission
Congress of Racial Equality
Sit-ins, Chicago, 1943
NB: Both MOWM & CORE employ Gandhian, non-violent direct action tactics
WW2 & Southern Race Relations
Durham Conference & Statement, 1942
southern black leadership: Gordon Blaine Hancock
no direct challenge to Jim Crow; want better treatment within segregation
support from southern white liberals…
Southern Regional Council, 1944
finally denounces Jim Crow in 1949
Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma, 1944
exposed gap between US democratic theory & practice; proposed govt. action to resolve it.
Alarms southern conservatives….
The Vulnerable South, 1941-54
WW2 accelerates economic, political & social changes
Govt. defense contracts
farming modernization
mechanization
decline of sharecropping
mass migrations
to southern cities
to North
Balance of power in region shifts away from agrarian to urban/industrial/commercial sectors
NAACP
Increased membership
Veterans as activists
Medgar Evers
Legal victories
Morgan vs Virginia, 1946
outlaws segregation on interstate transportation
Shelley vs Kramer, 1947
outlaws discrimination in real estate practices
1951 NAACP targets segregation in public schools
Brown vs Topeka, 1954
Direct Action
Journey of Reconciliation, 1947 (to test Morgan)
CORE & Fellowship of Reconciliation
Gandhian methods
CIO, “Operation Dixie,” 1946-8
Biracial union drive
Bus Boycotts
Mobile & Baton Rouge “polite segregation”
Race & The Cold War
Paradox:
McCarthyism stifled dissent:
civil rights groups red-baited
But: Cold War also increased federal & popular sensitivity to the injustices of Jim Crow – bad for US image abroad and propaganda fight with USSR
Increased liberal support for racial justice campaigns:
President Truman’s Commission on Civil Rights, To Secure These Rights, 1947
Conclusions
1. African American & their allies used WW2 & the Cold War to push for the same freedom & democracy America claimed to be protecting around the globe.
2. Between 1941 and 1954, African Americans used a wide repertoire of protest techniques, from the courts to direct action in the street.
3. Thanks to these efforts, important legislative gains were made & by the early 1950s Jim Crow looked doomed. Brown seemed to confirm this trend.
4. However, southern conservatives had already begun to mobilize to resist racial change (eg: Dixiecrat Revolt), first hoping to prevent federally ordered desegregation, and then planning ways to avoid full compliance.
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