Civil Rights and Post War American Ideals

Social and Political Changes Supported an End to Segregation

Mar 13, 2009
Michael Streich

James Meredith escorted to class,1962 - Library of Congress

Following the Brown v Board of Education case, the growing Civil Rights Movement found support among white Americans confronted by a contradiction to equality & justice.

As World War II ended and the Cold War began, significant changes in American society relevant to national self-identity emerged. These changes enabled support for a growing Civil Rights movement aimed chiefly at ending Southern segregation policies and reversing the ramifications of the 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v Ferguson. Beginning with the first Brown case in 1954, the movement saw both the courts and the Congress affirm what men like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were preaching to both black and white Americans. By 1964, President Johnson’s “Great Society” included enactment of Civil Rights legislation that was more than just the “window-dressing” of earlier Civil Rights Acts.

Changing America after World War II

African Americans had served courageously in World War II from the first action at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The Tuskegee Airmen were celebrated for their war time contributions and although segregation still existed in the armed forces, that was about to change with President Truman’s executive order of 1948 (9981). While African Americans represented approximately 10% of the total population during World War II, they represented 11% of all registrants for military service.

Politically, American Civil Rights were also aided by the rise of Liberal Democrats in the Northern states that supported desegregation. At the same time, Republicans were slowly making inroads in Southern states, a lengthy shift in political realignments that would be complete in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan. In 1961, for example, John Tower became the first Republican Senator from Texas since Reconstruction. Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, who began his public career supporting segregation, hired James Meredith as an advisor on his Senate staff.

The early Cold War years forced Americans to ask, “what makes us better than them?” (Communists) The defense of the American system called into question segregationist policies that suddenly seemed blatantly un-American, highlighting the Brown decision that had declared separate but equal to be “inherently unequal.” Furthermore, “de jure” segregation in the South was not ending “with all deliberate speed” (Brown II, 1955).

The rise in post-war productivity and the subsequent expansion in consumerism grew the American Middle Class and mainstreamed America’s ethnic groups, although some slower than others. Within this progressive climate, Americans began to develop more egalitarian perspectives and attitudes. Racial discrimination, while still overt and, as in the South, deeply entrenched, was beginning to recede.

The Brown Decision and its Impact on Education

In the face of a post-war boom that offered many future promises of prosperity and technological successes, the Warren Court correctly and wisely saw the education system as the first step in significant social reform. If education between different races is truly “inherently unequal,” how can African Americans benefit from a future that mandated the highest possible academic standards and opportunities? In the school year 1964-1965, ten years after the Brown decision, only 2% of Southern African Americans attended integrated schools. By 1970 this rose to 30%.

In 1947, Dr. Martin Luther King’s essay on “The Purpose of Education” had detailed the very results sought by the high court: education must lead to equality and social justice for all people. By the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement was supported by many whites, including predominantly white church groups and liberal legislators. At the same time, the courts turned their attention to Northern “de facto” segregation among school systems, brought about, in many cases, by the “white flight” to the newly created Levittowns of the Northeast.

Ultimately, changes in American thinking, reaction to the Communist threat, living in a Nuclear Age, and achieving high levels of prosperity that expanding the Middle Class and homeownership all contributed to notions that supported the need for Civil Rights reform and purposeful action that ensured equality for all people.