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I think it's also important to remember the effect of WWII on the Civil Rights movements in the US. For instance, looking at black civil rights, in June, 1941, as the US was gearing up for war, the NAACP had its annual meeting in Houston, with the theme of the annual meeting being "The Negro and National Defense", and there had been talk of a massive Civil Rights March on Washington DC, starting on July 1, and then culminating on Independence Day, and in fact A. Philip Randolph, the President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters as well as some other black political figures met with members of FDR's cabinet and the First Lady, saying that, unless there were laws preventing discrimination in the defense industry, he could put "ten, twenty, fifty thousand Negroes on the White House lawn". Just after that, FDR issued Executive Order 8802, which banned discrimination in hiring by the Federal Government and defense contractors, and set up the Fair Employment Practice Committee to respond to complaints of discrimination. (Randolph was also one of the big forces behind desegregating the army, which was finally done in 1948. This next story isn't really related, except for the role of Executive Order 8802 and the FEPC, but I want to mention the desegregation of Philadelphia's mass transit and the Philadelphia Transit Strike of 1944. In 1944, the Philadelphia Transit Company, which was the private company that ran Philadelphia's busses and trollies, changed their policies. Prior to that, black people weren't allowed to hold anything other than menial positions....they couldn't become drivers, for instance. Starting in 1943, the FEPC and the federal government as a whole started pressuring the PTC to change its policies to eliminated discriminatory hiring and promotion practices. One of the biggest supporters of the discriminatory policies of the PTC was the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Employees Union (PRTEU), which had close ties to the PTC. In March of 1944, the transit workers, in a really heavily contested vote, changed their affiliation from PRTEU to the Transport Workers Union, which was part of the CIO. The TWU then went on to enter into new contract negotiations with the PTC, because the contract expired in April. The problem was, even though the TWU was the new union, a lot of the employees were old PRTEU loyalists. Meanwhile, the PTC kept putting the federal government off, saying they couldn't change hiring practices until the new contract was signed,. So then in July, the Federal War Manpower Commission officially announced that the PTC was in violation of the anti-discrimination policy, and the PTC gave in, announced at the beginning of the month that they'd comply, and on July 27th, promoted eight black employees to trolley car operators, saying they'd begin their training August 1st. Meanwhile, though, the NAACP found out that a lot of the old PRTEU people were holding meetings on company property and threatening to strike if the company went ahead with it. The NAACP informed the PTC president, but he didn't do anything. So then, August 1, employees started calling in sick. By noon, 4500 employees weren't working and all the transit vehicles were idle. The local NAACP let the national organization know, who told the Federal government. (The strike, btw, had a devastating effect on war production. That first day, army supply production in the city was cut in half and naval supply production cut by 70%.) Eventually, after about a week, the strike was settled by the army coming in, but this led to a permanent change in Philadelphia public transit hiring. Neither of these really fit the topic of Civil Rights movements between 1950-70, but I wouldn't be surprised if you saw a lot of army veterans involved in a big way in the Civil Rights movements, but I defer to someone who knows more.
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Jan 16, 2022 00:45
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Fighting Trousers posted:It's also important to remember the DECADES of civil rights activism that preceded the Civil Rights Era. Black WWI veterans and the Red Summer, the 'New Negro' movement, the Double V campaign - this was the foundational work that, when segregation suddenly became a national embarrassment instead of a regional quirk, Black activists were ready. "Why should I shed my blood for Roosevelt’s America, for Cotton Ed Smith and Senator Bilbo, for the whole Jim Crow, negro-hating South, for the low-paid, dirty jobs for which negroes have to fight, for the few dollars of relief and the insults, discrimination, police brutality, and perpetual poverty to which negroes are condemned even in the more liberal North?"-CLR James
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Jan 16, 2022 01:37
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So yesterday, I mentioned 1941's threatened March on Washington and how it led to the passage of Executive Order 8802, banning employment discrimination among defense contractors. Now, lets talk about another March on Washington (which is probably not the one you're thinking about). In 1954, the Supreme Court released a decision in Brown vs The Board of Education of Topeka (actually 5 different cases consolidated), saying that school segregation was unconstitutional and ordering school districts to integrate "with all deliberate speed." Unfortunately, a lot of segregated school districts read "for all deliberate speed" to mean "not at all", and the federal government didn't really do much at that point to force integration. So, in 1957, to mark the three year anniversary of the decision, a bunch of black civil rights leaders, most notably A Phillip Randolph, who (as you remember from the last post) had threatened the 1941 march and was one of the founders of the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights, as well as Bayard Rustin and Ella Baker of the new Southern Leadership Conference (soon to be renamed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference), decided to plan a march on Washington to pressure the Eisenhower administration Baker had been a long time organizer with the NAACP, and Rustin was a Socialist organizer, had worked with Randolph had organized the first Freedom Ride, was a leader of the pacifist War Resister's League, and did more other stuff than you can shake a stick at. They immediately ran into some opposition from Adam Clayton Powell. Powell was a representative from New York and one of two black Congressmen. He was a Democrat, but in 1956, he endorsed Eisenhower, feeling that the Democrats were too weak on black civil rights. He was afraid that the protest would be seen as a criticism of Eisenhower's inaction (which it was), but in order to avoid offending Powell, the organizers recast it as a prayer vigil, and it got the name "The Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom". It took place on May 17th, 1957, as a three hour demonstration in front of the Lincoln Memorial. In addition to the groups I mentioned, it was backed by the NAACP and the United Auto Workers, who's president, Walter Reuther, was a big supporter of black civil rights. About 25,000 people showed up, and it was, at the time, the largest demonstration for civil rights. It's probably most remembered today, though, because the final speaker of the afternoon was a minister, the pastor of Montgomery Alabama's Dexter Street Baptist Church, named Martin Luther King, Jr. His speech, "Give us the Ballot", calling for the passage of a Voting Rights Bill, brought him to national attention for the first time. I'd like to be able to say that the Prayer Pilgrimage was such a success, it led to an immediate end to opposition to school integration, but that's not true, but it was a step forward in bringing the issue to the public's attention.
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Jan 16, 2022 19:58
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