African Americans became increasingly restive in the postwar
years. During the war they had challenged discrimination in the
military services and in the work force, and they had made
limited gains. Millions of African Americans had left Southern
farms for Northern cities, where they hoped to find better jobs.
They found instead crowded conditions in urban slums. Now,
African-American servicemen returned home, many intent on
rejecting second-class citizenship.
Jackie Robinson dramatized the racial question in 1947 when he
broke baseball's color line and began playing in the major
leagues. A member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, he often faced
trouble with opponents and teammates as well. But an outstanding
first season led to his acceptance and eased the way for other
African-American players, who now left the Negro leagues to
which they had been confined.
Government officials, and many other Americans, discovered the
connection between racial problems and Cold War politics. As the
leader of the free world, the United States sought support in
Africa and Asia. Discrimination at home impeded the effort to
win friends in other parts of the world.
Harry Truman supported the early civil rights movement. He
personally believed in political equality, though not in social
equality, and recognized the growing importance of the
African-American urban vote. When apprised in 1946 of a spate of
lynchings and anti-black violence in the South, he appointed a
committee on civil rights to investigate discrimination. Its
report, To Secure These Rights, issued the next year, documented
African Americans' second-class status in American life and
recommended numerous federal measures to secure the rights
guaranteed to all citizens.
Truman responded by sending a 10-point civil rights program to
Congress. Southern Democrats in Congress were able to block its
enactment. A number of the angriest, led by Governor Strom
Thurmond of South Carolina, formed a States Rights Party to
oppose the president in 1948. Truman thereupon issued an
executive order barring discrimination in federal employment,
ordered equal treatment in the armed forces, and appointed a
committee to work toward an end to military segregation, which
was largely ended during the Korean War.
African Americans in the South in the 1950s still enjoyed few,
if any, civil and political rights. In general, they could not
vote. Those who tried to register faced the likelihood of
beatings, loss of job, loss of credit, or eviction from their
land. Occasional lynchings still occurred. Jim Crow laws
enforced segregation of the races in streetcars, trains, hotels,
restaurants, hospitals, recreational facilities, and employment.
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