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African Americans in WWII




With the start of the Second World War black young men, along with the white young men, were drafted into the armed forces. They served in all-black units, which were not used in combat, but mostly built roads and airports, moved supplies, provided medical services, etc. The blacks’ wartime achievements helped to end segregation in the American armed forces. In 1948, President Truman ordered “equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the Armed Forces without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.”

 

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954)

African American veterans returning to the South after military service were unwilling to be subjected to the humiliation of segregation and discrimination in the land for which they served and shed blood. They were determined to take matters in their own hands. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founded back in 1909, increased its activities. The NAACP's Legal department undertook a campaign to overturn the judicial doctrine established by Plessy v. Ferguson, which made segregation legal.

 

In 1951, Oliver Brown of Topeka, Kansas, challenged the “separate-but-equal” doctrine when he sued the city school board on behalf of his eight-year-old daughter. Brown wanted his daughter to attend the white school that was 4 blocks from their home, rather than the black school that was 21 blocks away. Finding the schools substantially equal, a federal court ruled against Brown. Meanwhile, parents of black children in other states filed similar lawsuits.

 

The Supreme Court heard arguments from all these cases at the same time. The briefs filed by the black litigants included data from researchers who studied the harmful effects of segregation on black children. In the "doll test," carried out by social psychologists Kenneth Clark and his wife, children were given a black doll and a white doll and asked which one they preferred. Most black children preferred the white doll, to which they also attributed the most positive characteristics. The Clarks also gave the children outline drawings of a boy and girl and asked them to color the figures the same color as themselves. Many of the children with dark complexions colored the figures with a white or yellow crayon. The Clarks concluded that prejudice, discrimination, and segregation caused black children to develop a sense of inferiority and self-hatred.

 

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that “separate facilities are inherently unequal,” and decreed that the “separate but equal” doctrine could no longer be used in public schools. President

Dwight Eisenhower ordered the desegregation of Washington, D.C. schools to serve as a model for the rest of the country. The Brown v. Board of Topeka decision marked the beginning of the civil rights movement.


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