Notes On Civil Rights in the USA 1945-1968

Resource Description

Civil Rights in the USA 1945-1968

Survey 

The position of African Americans at the start of the period, including: 

–  The impact of World War II on the circumstances of African Americans in the United States 

• In 1941 the majority of the 10-13 million African Americans lived in the South in rural areas. Factories in the North did provide around two million black people with work and the majority of them were migrants from the south 
• 1 million black Americans joined the Army to fight overseas. This was quite ironic as they were fighting for democracy in another country when this was not a complete reality for them at home 
• The NAACP’s membership grew during the wartime period from 50 000 to 500 000 as it waged a campaign against discrimination 
• US President Franklin Roosevelt was embarrassed by the huge pay gap and conditions between black and white workers in the defence industry. On the 25th June 1941, he issues Executive Order 8802 prohibiting discrimination and created the Fair Employment Practices Commission. The US Marine Corps however, excluded African Americans and the Navy used them as servants. The Red Cross even segregated blood plasma. 
• In 1943 a riot broke out in Detroit in a housing project that was sponsored by the federal government. Some of the white residents wanted blacks barred from the new apartments. Fighting broke out and federal troops had to be brought in to stop the violence.
• In 1942 a survey showed that many black Americans sympathised with the Japanese struggle to expel white colonialists form the Far East. That same survey also suggested that white industrialists in the South preferred Germany to win the war instead of racial equality for blacks. 
• During the war period, another organisation that fought for black rights was CORE or the Congress of Racial Equality