Chapter Overview

American leadership of the free world after the Allied victory of World War II required believable leadership at home so that blacks, like other Americans, would be guaranteed the right to vote, protection from racial violence, an integrated military, equal employment opportunities, fair access to social security, and racial harmony throughout the country. Americans who denounced the racial inequality at home called attention to the long-standing disparity between the nation's ideals and its applied behavior. In the latter part of the 1940s, as the Cold War placed the United States squarely against the Soviet Union in a struggle that would extend through the mid 1980s, antiracist philosophy would pose problems for many socially conscious Americans. At a time when such activism was viewed as subversive, those who fought racial discrimination made hard choices as they pursued international causes, legal challenges, labor protest, social scientific research, and artistic production.

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter you should understand the following:

• The "Negro Problem" as outlined by W. E. B. Du Bois in 1903, and the continuing disparity in black education versus that for whites throughout the United States in the postwar years
• The continuing contributions to the arts by African Americans in this era
• The growing internationalist views of African American leaders as the community sought a place for their race in the context of the world
• The status of the ongoing struggle for equal civil rights in the workplace
• The impact President Harry Truman had on civil rights in the U.S., especially in the context of an integrated military
• Key judiciary points in the fight for civil rights through the American courts