Better Day Coming: Civil Rights in America in the 20th CenturyWorld War TwoIn 1941, when A

Better Day Coming: Civil Rights in America in the 20th Century

World War Two

In 1941, when America entered World War Two, most blacks still lived in the Southern States. There, they could not vote. Laws requiring separation of the races required black children to attend segregated schools that were grossly under-funded and, in many cases, consisted of falling-down shacks. Blacks traveling by bus were made to sit in the rear seats; if journeying by train, in separate carriages. Whites addressed blacks by their first names only and never used courtesy titles like "Mr." or "Mrs."

Racial discrimination infected the entire nation, not just the South. Blacks in the North lived in ghettos, because they were unable to buy or rent houses elsewhere. Many trade unions routinely excluded blacks from membership. Although no laws required them, segregated schools were common in Northern cities. Above all, racial segregation was still the official policy of the federal government.

Nevertheless, blacks had high hopes that World War Two would enable them to regain some of their lost rights. For one thing, they believed that if they fought for their country they should be rewarded with equal citizenship. In the second place, President Roosevelt defined the conflict as a war for democratic freedom. Blacks were quick to compare the racial theories of the Nazis with the racist beliefs of Southern whites. They vowed to conquer "Hitlerism without and Hitlerism within". Finally, the expansion of the wartime economy enabled blacks to enter industries that had previously barred them, leading them to hope for promotion and access to more decision-making positions.

The outcome of the war, however, proved a massive disappointment. The government refused to abandon racial segregation in the forces, and was even reluctant to send black troops into battle. Roosevelt did nothing to challenge the mass disenfranchisement of black voters in the South. And although the president ordered an end to discrimination in the defence industries, white workers stubbornly resisted the recruitment and promotion of blacks.

The Cold War

Yet only three years after the war ended, Roosevelt's successor, Harry S. Truman, embraced the cause of civil rights. He asked Congress to legislate against racial discrimination. He integrated the armed services.

Why this sudden about-turn by the federal government？ One reason is that the war had helped to discredit theories of racial superiority. When Allied troops uncovered the full extent of the Holocaust, the world recoiled in horror. Racism, whether in the form. of anti-Semitism or proclamations of white supremacy, could never again be respectable.

Furthermore, the Cold War had made racial discrimination an international issue. As the colonial empires of Europe broke up, the United States and the Soviet Union jockeyed for influence among the non-white peoples of Asia and Africa. Soviet propaganda lashed the United States for its treatment of blacks. Racial segregation suddenly became an embarrassment to Washington. Anxious to erase this stain on America's reputation, the Supreme Court, declared that segregated schools were unconstitutional.

The Civil Rights Movement

Encouraged by a feeling that history was finally going their way, blacks in the South did what had once been unthinkable. They openly rebelled against racial discrimination. This new civil rights movement began in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955. Mrs. Rosa Parks refused to obey a bus driver who ordered her to surrender her seat to a white man. Her arrest prompted 50,000 blacks to boycott(联合抵制) the city buses for more than a year, until seating was finally integrated. Not only was the protest a triumphant success, garnering(存储) worldwide sympathy, but it also threw up a inspiring and eloquent leader, a young Baptist clergyman called Martin Luther King,

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