Race Relations in the
USA 1945-1968
GCSE History Revision Notes
By Dane O’ Neill
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Contents
Racial Segregation in America................................................................................................................. 5
African-American soldiers’ experience of WW2 ..................................................................................... 5
“Executive Order 8802” and the Detroit Race Riots ........................................................................... 5
Segregation in the US Armed Forces .................................................................................................. 5
The Tuskegee Airmen.......................................................................................................................... 6
Discrimination continues after WW2 ................................................................................................. 6
Truman de-segregates the Armed Forces, 1948................................................................................. 6
Discrimination in the Southern States: the ‘Jim Crow Laws’ and ‘Formal Segregation’ ..................... 7
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African-Americans COULD NOT VOTE:.................................................................................... 7
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Blacks and whites were SEGREGATED: ................................................................................... 7
Racial Discrimination in the Southern States: White Supremacist groups and racial violence .............. 7
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) ........................................................................................................................ 7
Discrimination in the Northern States: African-American Ghettoes, black urban poverty, and
‘Informal Segregation’ 1920s onwards… ............................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
The Beginning of Civil Rights Movements in America ............................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) ................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Desegregation tensions: Little Rock Central High School, 1957 .......... Error! Bookmark not defined.
James Meredith and the University of Mississippi, 1962 .................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1956 ..................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Before the Boycott: Racial Segregation in Montgomery, Alabama ..... Error! Bookmark not defined.
The Bravery of Rosa Parks, 1 December, 1955 .................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1956 ........ Error! Bookmark not defined.
The Monday Boycott............................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
The Boycott Continues ......................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Whites oppose the Boycott ................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
The Supreme Court Decision, 1956 ..................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Successes of the Montgomery Bus Boycott......................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Failures of the Montgomery Bus Boycott ............................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
The methods of the Civil Rights Movement, 1961-1968 ......................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
The Freedom Riders, 1961 ....................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
The Greensboro Sit-ins............................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
The Freedom Marches ............................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
The March on Birmingham, 1963 ........................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
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The March on Washington, 1963......................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
The Assassination of President Kennedy, November 1963 ................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
The March from Selma to Montgomery, 1965 .................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
The Black Power Movement in the 1960s ............................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Origins of the Black Power Movement, Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam ..... Error! Bookmark not
defined.
What did Black Power want? ............................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
The Black Panthers ............................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Black Power Protests at the Mexico Olympics, 1968........................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Martin Luther King (MLK): Background ................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Martin Luther King: his role as a protest organiser, 1955 -1963 ............. Error! Bookmark not defined.
The March on Birmingham, 1963 ........................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
The March on Washington, 1963......................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
The March from Selma to Montgomery, 1965 .................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
The Civil Rights Act (1964) ................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
King Wins the Nobel Peace Prize, 1964 ................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Race Riots, 1965-1967 ............................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Watts, Los Angeles, 1965 ..................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
The Riots Worsen … ............................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
The Assassination of Martin Luther King, March 1968 ........................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
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Key Issue 1: To what extent did Racial
Inequality exist in the USA after the
Second World War?
Racial Segregation in America
African-American soldiers’ experience of WW2
“Executive Order 8802” and the Detroit Race Riots
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America had joined WW2 to defend the principles of democracy and freedom from attack by
Hitler and his allies.
However, the discrimination against blacks and the denial of black civil rights in America and
in the armed forces made US involvement in WW2 seem quite hypocritical.
Over 2 million Africa-Americans were working in the federal civil service, and 2 million more
were employed in defence plants.
Because African Americans were making a huge contribution to the American War Effort and
were fighting and dying to protect the freedom of other peoples, many began to question
what America would do about the awful conditions of segregation and other forms of
discrimination that blacks were enduring at home.
Civil rights leaders A. Philip Randolph and Walter White planned a 100,000-strong march on
Washington D.C to protest against the discrimination against blacks working in the defence
industry i.e., in weapons factories.
Eleanor Roosevelt met with White and Randolph to try and persuade them to call the march
off, but they refused. Then Franklin D. Roosevelt met with the men, and they informed him
that the only way to stop the march was to sign an executive order banning discrimination in
the defence industries.
Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802 on June 25, 1941, which banned any discrimination
in the employment of workers in the defence industries because of ‘race, creed, color, or
national origin.’
Executive Order 8802 caused outrage among some white workers and tensions remained
high between black and white factory workers during the war.
Race riots erupted in Detroit in 1943, killing 25 blacks and injuring 9 whites.
Segregation in the US Armed Forces
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When America joined World War 2 in 1941, thousands of African Americans wanted to join
the fight against Hitler and Nazism.
Over 2.5 million blacks registered for the draft when World War 2 began, and approximately
1 million served in the conflict.
However, blacks were discriminated against at every turn, and despite their service to their
country, they were still treated like second-class citizens.
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Just like American society, the American military was segregated along racial lines.
Blacks and whites were forced to serve in separate military units, and black soldiers were
never given the same opportunities or rights as white soldiers.
Early in the war, African Americans were often excluded from fighting; instead, they were
often assigned to perform menial tasks such as cooking, grave-digging, or working as cargo
handlers. Black units were supervised by white officers.
As the fighting in WW2 became more extreme, the military began to allow African
Americans to serve on the battlefield; When he was faced with Hitler’s advancing forces on
the Western Front, General Dwight D. Eisenhower temporarily desegregated the army
because he desperately needed men to fight. Over 2000 African Americans volunteered to
fight in the Battle of the Bulge.
The Tuskegee Airmen
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The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) pressured the US
War Department to allow African Americans to fight for their country alongside white
Americans.
Between 1941 and 1946, approximately 1,000 black fighter pilots were trained at an Air
Force Base near Tuskegee, Alabama.
The Base was segregated.
The pilots became known as the Tuskegee Airmen, and they became distinguished fighter
pilots during WW2.
Some of the Tuskegee Airmen belonged to the elite 332nd Fighter Group, and their planes
carried distinctive red markings – earning the men of the 332nd the nickname ‘Red Tails’.
The skill of the Red Tails and the Tuskegee Airmen was so renowned that the Germans
feared meeting a Tuskegee Airman in combat.
The Tuskegee Airmen flew around 15,000 combat missions in North Africa and Europe and
lost 66 men in combat during the Second World War.
Discrimination continues after WW2
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Throughout WW2, African Americans fought bravely and distinguished themselves on the
battlefield, but they would never be awarded the Medal of Honour because of the racism
that existed in the armed forces.
Even after the huge sacrifices that African Americans made during WW2, they returned
home to face segregation and discrimination at every turn. Blacks had fought for the
freedom of nations against the tyranny of Nazism, but they themselves were absolutely
tyrannised by their own society after the war.
Truman de-segregates the Armed Forces, 1948
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President Harry S. Truman realised that if America was to maintain its position as the
defender of world freedom, then it could no longer allow its own citizens to be segregated
along racial lines.
In 1948, President Truman signed Executive Order 9981, and ended segregation in the
armed forces.
Remember, Truman only desegregated the armed forces: segregation remained everywhere
else.
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Discrimination in the Southern States: the ‘Jim Crow Laws’ and ‘Formal
Segregation’
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The Jim Crow laws were laws that discriminated against African-Americans.
They got their name from the racist minstrel shows of the 19th Century that belittled black
people. ‘Jim Crow’ was a fictional – and highly racist – interpretation of black people.
The Jim Crow Laws made it extremely difficult for African-Americans to have access to the
civil rights they had already won during the American Civil War in the 1860s.
Under the Jim Crow laws:
 African-Americans COULD NOT VOTE: African-Americans had to prove that
their grandfather had voted before they could be allowed to vote. This was
extremely difficult because during the 1920s, most ancestors of African-Americans
were slaves with no voting rights.
 Blacks and whites were SEGREGATED: African-American and white people
were forced to use ‘separate but equal’ facilities such as schools, theatres, toilets,
restaurants, public drinking fountains, restaurants, and public transport. This
ensured that racial segregation would continue legally, and that African-Americans
would be forced to use separate facilities to white people. The ‘separate but equal
facilities’ were also much worse for black people.
Racial Segregation was widespread in the Southern States.
Racial segregation was so common in the American South that most Southern white people
accepted it as being normal; they did not see anything wrong with segregation.
Racial Discrimination in the Southern States: White Supremacist
groups and racial violence
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
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The Ku Klux Klan was formed after the American Civil War (1861-1864) and it operated in
the Southern States.
The KKK was a white supremacist organisation: they believed that the white race is superior
to all other races.
The KKK opposed African-Americans being given more civil rights, such as the right to vote,
the right to marry, and the right to education.
The KKK also opposed Jews, Catholics, and immigrants, and later, Communists.
American fears arising from increased immigration and ‘the Red Scare’ allowed the KKK to
become very prominent during the 1920s, with around 4 million Klan members across
America by 1925.
The KKK gained support by organising mass rallies, marches and parades, and it took the
burning cross as its symbol. The KKK used intimidation, violence, torture, rapes, brandings,
and ‘lynchings’ (illegal executions) against African-Americans and other minority groups in
America.
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