1. Postwar Prosperity & Civil Rights
Unit 16
Postwar Prosperity & Civil Rights

2. Reasons for Postwar Prosperity
During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the U.S. Gross National Product (GNP) and average income grew while employment decreased. There were political, social and economic reasons for this prosperity.
Political reason:
The G.I. Bill of Rights gave World War II veterans benefits like unemployment pay, loans to buy a home or start a business, and money for education.
Social reasons:
Demobilization – the return of soldiers to their civilian lives – and the Baby Boom, the huge surge in birth rates that resulted when returning veterans quickly married and had children.
With the mass-produced housing developments like Levittown, many Americans were able to afford their own homes and moved to suburbs.

3. Reasons for Postwar Prosperity, cont.
Economic reasons:
European economies had been devastated by the war. American manufacturers therefore faced less competition. The United States became the world’s leading producer.
New technologies developed during the war, such as plastics and drugs, continued to expand, and many Americans found jobs in the growing aircraft, electrical, and chemical industries.
With their new purchasing power, Americans could afford more luxury items including refrigerators, cars and televisions, than ever before.

4. Reasons for Postwar Prosperity, cont.
Political and economic reasons:
Government spending, which had increased during the Great Depression and World War II, continued to grow because of the Cold War and the Korean War.
The Employment Act of 1946 announced the goal of federal economic policy to be maximum production and full employment.
The U. S. Government also helped rebuild European economies by giving money through the Marshall Plan.

5. The Effects of Postwar Prosperity on American Society
Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first Republican President in 20 years, preserved most New Deal programs but also promoted American business. He encouraged suburb growth and helped to unite the country by passing the Federal Highway Act, which created highways to link suburbs and cities.
Prosperity, mass production, and mass consumption led to conformity. Many Americans worked at large corporations, lived in suburbs, and bought the same items. The mass media created a mass culture.
Some new policies were harsh on labor: the Taft-Hartley Act, passed after a series of strikes in 1946, reversed many of the gains made by labor during the Great Depression.
Prosperity was limited to some groups. Suburbs imposed restrictions on minorities. Mass media ignored them, and many jobs excluded them. Minority veterans often failed to obtain the benefits of the GI Bill.

6. Roots of the Civil Rights Movement
“Jim Crow” laws had created a system of legally enforced racial segregation throughout the South. Some African-Americans tried to escape by migrating to the North.
African-American organizations, like the church, the NAACP, the National Urban League, and CORE (the Congress of Racial Equality) as well as African-American universities, such as Howard, worked to improve conditions and mobilize African Americans in the early 20th century
World War II contributed to the mobilization of African Americans. Black soldiers fought in the military, though in segregated units. On the home front, many worked in jobs previously barred to them. The horrors of Nazism revealed the dangers of racism, to all.
After the war, anti colonial movements in Asia and Africa inspired African American Civil Rights leaders.
The Cold War made American leaders realize the need to curb racism to act as the champion of democracy.

7. The Struggle Against Racial Segregation: 1945-1956
Beginnings
The Civil Rights Movement began in the postwar era and continued into the 1960s. A combination grass-roots activism and federal intervention produced great changes, especially in the South.
President Truman desegregated the military in 1948 and prohibited job discrimination in the federal government. Jackie Robinson became the first African American to play Major League Baseball the year before

8. The Struggle Against Racial Segregation: 1945-1956, cont.
Education and Brown v. Board of Education Topeka, Kansas (1954)
Overturned Plessy v Ferguson (1896), which permitted “separate but equal” facilities.
In Brown, the NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall used evidence from a psychologist to show that segregation created feelings of inequality.
Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the unanimous opinion of the Court. The Court held that segregation had no place in public education because it led to facilities that were inherently unequal.
The Court ordered states to desegregate their school systems with “all deliberate speed.” In some cases, busing (taking students by bus to more distant schools) was used to desegregate schools.

9. The Struggle Against Racial Segregation: 1945-1956, cont.
Education and Brown v. Board of Education Topeka, Kansas, cont.
Southern reactions to Brown were violent. Senators swore not to enforce the decision. Murders, like that of young Emmet Till, increased. So did membership in the KKK. Some schools closed rather than integrate.
In Little Rock, Arkansas, the state governor ordered the National Guard to prevent nine black students from attending and all-white school. President Eisenhower then sent federal troops to escort the “Little Rock Nine” and protect them throughout the year.

10. The Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956)
Was a successful attempt to end segregation on public transit. Rosa Parks, an NAACP member, refused to sit in the “colored” part of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and was arrested.
The NAACP organized a boycott of the bus system: African Americans refused to ride the buses until segregation was ended and African Americans were hired as drivers.
The movement elected Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as its leader. King believed in non-violent agitation to end oppression.
The boycott ran for almost a year until the local federal court ordered the public transit system to desegregate (ending racial segregation).
The success of the boycott caused several of its leaders, mostly ministers, to form the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) to fight for racial equality using non-violence.

11. The Struggle Against Racial Segregation: From Sit-Ins to Affirmative Action, 1960-1965
African-American students fought for equality through social activism. One famous tactic, begun at a lunch counter in Greensboro, NC, was the sit-in, in which blacks and whites sat together in a “white” section and refused to move despite verbal and physical abuse.
In 1960, white and black students from 30 states formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to organize civil rights protests.
In 1961, CORE organized Freedom Rides, in which interracial groups bravely refused to sit in segregated sections of buses traveling across Southern states. These riders were often attacked by mobs at stops and eventually had to be protected by federal marshals.
In 1963, Martin Luther King and other leaders let a march on Birmingham, Alabama. They were arrested, and King wrote his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” demanding equality. Television showed the rest of the nation the horrible violence used by the Birmingham police against peaceful protesters.

12. The Struggle Against Racial Segregation: From Sit-Ins to Affirmative Action, 1960-1965, cont.
President Kennedy became alarmed by the violence and proposed a federal civil rights bill
A. Philip Randolph, Dr. Martin Luther King, and other leaders organized a March on Washington in support of Kennedy’s civil rights bill. More than 250,000 people attended. King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
When Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress. It was the most important such measure since Reconstruction and banned racial discrimination in hotels, restaurants, unions, and federal contractors. It also protected other minority groups and women.

13. The Struggle Against Racial Segregation: From Sit-Ins to Affirmative Action, 1960-1965, cont.
In 1965, President Johnson implemented “affirmative action,” requiring employers with federal contracts to hire more women and minorities.
President Johnson also appointed Robert Weaver as the first African-American Cabinet Member, and Thurgood Marshall as the first African-American Supreme Court Justice.
Then years later, the Supreme Court’s Bakke decision declared racial quotas under “affirmative action” programs to be unconstitutional; however, universities could consider race in admissions decisions in order to overcome past discrimination and provide student diversity.

14. The Struggle for Voting Rights
African Americans in the South had been stripped of the vote by poll taxes, literacy tests, and violence.
The Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 tried to end voting discrimination, but proved ineffective.
The 24th Amendment, ratified in 1964, prohibited poll taxes.
The same year, various civil rights organizations planned “Freedom Summer,” a campaign to register black voters in Mississippi. The volunteers were often attacked and three were killed by the KKK.
Extreme violence against a peaceful march from Selma to Montgomery led President Johnson to introduce the Voting Rights Act of “Federal examiners” were sent to register black voters.

15. The Black Power Movement
A series of events in the late 60s splintered the movement. Riots like the Watts Riot in L.A. broke out in the summers of 1965 and In 1968, Dr. King was assassinated, causing more riots.
A commission appointed by President Johnson determined that the unrest had been caused by urban poverty and by job and housing discrimination. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Fair Housing Act) prohibited discrimination in housing.
Many African Americans, especially youths in Northern cities, thought the Civil Rights Movement was too slow and limited despite its earlier successes. They disagreed with its program of non-violence and interracial cooperation. These activists began a more militant Black Power Movement.

16. The Black Power Movement, cont.
The Black Power Movement began with a group of leaders who wanted African Americans to take control of their own communities, fight racism directly, and avoid contact with whites. Many were inspired by the independence movements of African nations.
Malcom X joined the Nation of Islam while in jail, believing that African Americans should form a separate state because of interracial cooperation was impossible. He wanted blacks to fight violence with violence and advocated “black nationalism,” or black self-government. He was eventually assassinated by members of the Nation of Islam when he renounced their ideas.
Stokely Carmichael was a Howard student who became the leader of SNCC. He made the organization more militant ant introduced the term “Black Power.” He was in favor of black separatism and the use of violence to fight racism.

17. The Black Power Movement, cont.
The Black Panther Party was formed by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton to protect black neighborhoods in Oakland, California. They called for the arming of African Americans but also implemented social programs. Their 10-Point Program made radical demands on whites.
Other African-American militants included H. Rap Brown and Robert F. Williams.
“Black Power” meant more than violence. It called for greater pride in the African-American identity. It led to the creation of new fashions, the “Afro” hairstyle, and black studies courses in universities.