World War II accelerated social change. Work in wartime industry and service in the armed forces, combined with the ideals of democracy, and spawned a new civil rights agenda at home that forever transformed American life. Black migration to the North, where the right to vote was available, encouraged the Democratic and Republican Parties to solicit African American supporters. Changes in public policy at the federal level augured the end of racial segregation, and civil rights became a national issue for the first time since the Reconstruction era.
The armed forces blended soldiers and sailors from across the nation into military units, although minorities were confined to racially segregated commands or occupations. The defense industry created jobs that eventually brought about social and legislative reform. Employers encouraged millions of married women and mothers to work outside the home for the first time, a move that for some women led to postwar employment. Approximately 65,000 Indians left their reservations to work in the wartime industries and serve in the armed forces. African Americans threatened a "March on Washington" in 1941, in their demand for a fair share of jobs and an end to segregation in government departments and the armed forces. President Roosevelt responded by taking action to ban discrimination in defense industries. To assure compliance, he formed the Federal Employment Practices Committee (FEPC);its hearings exposed racial discrimination practices and helped migrants in the North get work. The formation of the FEPC also led to the first legal case centered on civil rights issues regarding equal employment for Hispanics, whose leaders appeared before the FEPC and protested the exclusion of Hispanics from many war industries because employers considered them "aliens" despite their American citizenship.
Even as people of color served in the military, those at home still faced racial discrimination from federal and local governments. Nearly 110,000 persons of Japanese descent from Oregon, Washington, and California were removed to internment camps pursuant to Executive Order 9066, which authorized the clearing of civilians from "military areas" but were only applied to Japanese Americans. In the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943, white servicemen in Los Angeles attacked Hispanic teenagers, who received no police protection. Chinese Americans, emboldened in part by the role of China as an American ally in the war, struggled against America's deeply rooted and institutionalized anti-Chinese racism, thereby inching closer to abolishing racist ideology in immigration policies. Six states denied American Indians access to the ballot, basing their decision on illiteracy, residency, nontaxation, and wardship status.
World War II spurred a new militancy among African Americans. The NAACP—emboldened by the record of black servicemen in the war, a new corps of brilliant young lawyers, and steady financial support from white philanthropists—initiated major attacks against discrimination and segregation, even in the Jim Crow South.
Social pressure to end segregation also increased during and after the war. In 1944, the publication of Gunnar Myrdal's classic study of race relations, An American Dilemma, "offered an uncompromising account of the long history of racial injustice and a candid analysis of the economics of inequality."4 President Harry S Truman continued President Roosevelt's use of executive powers outside of Congress to advance black civil rights. In 1946, Truman commissioned a study of racial inequities that called for an end to segregation in America.
Completed in 1947, To Secure These Rights as well as legal victories in Supreme Court cases paved the way for the Second Reconstruction. In 1948, Truman issued Executive Order 9981, mandating "equality of treatment and opportunity for all those who serve in our country's defense…without regard to race, color, religion or national origin." Legal challenges to thePlessydoctrine dominated civil rights activities during the postwar era, culminating with the Supreme Court's 1954 decision inBrown v. Board of Education, which many scholars consider the birth of the modern civil rights movement.
Pivotal Moments in the Birth of the Civil Rights Movement
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- Type: Article
Curiosity Kits inspire exploration and learning of history through place. These multi-piece resources include articles that explore historic places and provide educational activities for life-long learners. This kit focuses on the life and work of Mabel Keaton Staupers, a nurse and civil rights activist. Use this series to learn about her work to integrating the nursing profession. She had a particular impact on the opportunities and treatment for Black nurses during World War II.
- Type: Article
Entangled Inequalities is a project that tells the story of the two (extra) ordinary families. The Munemitsu and Mendez families lived on a farm in southern California. Their story connects two pieces of World War II history: the US incarceration of Japanese Americans and the segregation of Latino students in California schools. The three lessons in this series allow students to learn more about the entangled inequalities faced by the two families. It supports the Entangled Inequalities Series.
- Type: Person
- Locations: Aleutian Islands World War II National Historic Area, Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument, Korean War Veterans Memorial, World War II Memorial
Elmer P. Gibson was a high-ranking African American Army Chaplain who served in World War II and the Korean War. He was an advocate for desegregating the military, and practiced desegregation as a chaplain, by holding integrated church services in the Aleutian Islands and other places. Later in life he served as an advisor to President Harry S. Truman and was a college president.
- Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument
Jackie Robinson
- Type: Person
- Locations: Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument
Jackie Robinson is most famous for being the first African American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era. The son of sharecroppers, he was born in 1919. During World War II, Robinson served with the all-Black 761st Tank Battalion and the 758th Tank Battalion. He was honorably discharged in 1944. He died on October 24, 1972, at the age of 53.
- Type: Person
Sallie Wyatt Stewart was an African American educator, real estate broker, civil rights activist, and community leader based in Evansville, Indiana. During World War II, she organized Evansville’s Colored Women’s Work Committee to promote the sale of war bonds and stamps. These home front activities built on Stewart’s lifetime of service dedicated to her community, especially the advancement of African American women and girls.
- Type: Article
- Locations: Booker T Washington National Monument, Gateway National Recreation Area, Governors Island National Monument, Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park, more »
- Offices: Partnerships, Interpretation, and Visitor Education, Youth Programs, Youth Programs Division
Meet Floyd Myers, who is the Chief of Business Development and Partnerships for the National Parks of New York Harbor. He was previously the acting Deputy Superintendent at Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park and worked at several other parks before that, including the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, the Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site, Selma to Montgomery National Historic Site, Booker T. Washington National Historic Site, and others.
- Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park
Gibson Grove (Cabin John), Maryland
- Type: Article
- Locations: Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park
Gibson Grove is a historical African American community, located in Cabin John, Maryland, and was established in the 1880s. Named for the African American Gibson family who relocated there after the Civil War, the community was home to ten core families, a church, and an African American school. Learn more about the lives and work of the Gibson Grove residents and how the community endured well into the twentieth century.
- Type: Article
The hostilities of World War II did not end all at once. In the United States, they also took place against the somber backdrop of President Roosevelt's death on April 12, 1945. A few short days later, on May 8, President Truman announced the unconditional surrender of Germany. Celebrations of V-E (Victory in Europe) Day spilled into the streets across the country and around the world. But the celebrations were tinged with the awareness that the war in the Pacific continued.
- Type: Article
Three lessons allow students to explore the challenges for education equality during World War II and study the people who fought to improve access for their communities. In support of the Entangled Inequalities: Japanese Incarceration and Mendez et al. v Westminster School District of Orange County et al. article series.
- Type: Article
- Locations: Eisenhower National Historic Site, Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument, World War II Memorial
Dwight D. Eisenhower and Medgar Evers both served their country in World War II and went on to shape the course of the nation after the war. Explore their stories here.
Last updated: April 7, 2016