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Protests against segregation increased during World War II (1939–1945).
African Americans fought courageously in segregated military units abroad, and then were given the lowest paying jobs at home. Membership in the NAACP increased tenfold. And labor leader A. Philip Randolph threatened to head a march on Washington to protest discrimination in the military and in job hiring. After the war, African Americans continued to pressure the government to ensure their constitutional rights. The civil rights movement was born.
▲ In 1947, the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson to play for them, making him the first African American since 1889 to play major league baseball. Robinson was no stranger to civil rights protests. As a soldier during World War II, he had refused to accept the segregated seating on a military bus. He had been court-martialed for disobedience. The charges were dismissed, and Robinson received an honorable discharge from the army.
In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled against segregation in schools in the case of Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. “Brown” refers to the family of Linda Brown, pictured below in her segregated classroom. The court ruled that separate schools for African Americans were by their nature unequal. In its words, to separate African American students from white students “generates a feeling of inferiority ... that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” It would take years for this ruling to be put into action. ▼
◀ After the Supreme Court ruling in Brown, White Citizen Councils began forming to fight desegregation. Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia called for “massive resistance” to the ruling. Some school systems even closed to avoid desegregation.
The U.S. government responded slowly to calls to end segregation. President Harry Truman was embarrassed by worldwide criticism that asked how the U.S. could call itself a democracy if African Americans were treated as second-class citizens. In 1948, he ordered an end to segregation in the military. ▶
▲ Rosa Parks was a dedicated member of the NAACP chapter in Montgomery, Alabama, who challenged the public library’s segregation policy. On December 1, 1955, tired after a long day of work, she boarded a crowded city bus and sat down. When the driver told her to give her seat to a white man, Parks refused and was arrested. Within a few days, the African Americans of Montgomery had rallied to her support by refusing to ride the buses. For over a year, young and old walked or carpooled to and from their jobs. In December 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Montgomery buses must desegregate, and the African Americans of Montgomery went back to riding the buses. Their year of protest had shown that they were well organized and willing to face hardships to fight segregation. After Parks died in October 2005, she was the first woman to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol building.
When the head of the Montgomery NAACP chapter was looking for someone to organize the bus boycott, a new minister in town agreed to take on the job. His name was Martin Luther King Jr. This was his first civil rights protest, but it was far from his last. African American churches quickly became the backbone of the civil rights movement. In 1957, King and others formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to combat segregation. ▼
Check It Out!
Who was Marian Anderson and how was she discriminated against?
In 1939, well-known African American singer Marian Anderson was refused permission to perform in Washington, D.C.’s, Constitution Hall. It was owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned her membership in the organization in protest. She helped arrange for Anderson to sing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial instead.
