SEGREGATION
THE GREAT DEPRESSION
WORLD WAR II
Perhaps the most influential cause of the Desegregation and Civil Rights Movement was the desegregation of the armed forces in World War II. White men discovered the full capabilities of blacks, as well as the dedication they had for their country. When these men returned to the States after the war, it became increasingly difficult for them to accept segregation. Thanks to James Farmer and his ways of testing segregation, they would soon have a way to speak out.
“No one can possibly have lived through the Great Depression without being scarred by it. No amount of experience since the depression can convince someone who has lived through it that the world is safe economically.”
-- Issac Asimov
Once slavery was officially abolished in the United States after the Civil War, segregation became as much a part of life in America as slavery had once been. In the second half of the 1900’s, the idea of segregation started being questioned more and more by the African-American community. Leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, as well as organizations such as the NAACP organized many ways of protesting the ideas of segregation.
“Racial segregation is characterized by forced separation of people of different races in daily life such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a restroom, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home.”
-- Nancy Pauly “Africa and Art”
“Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law”
--Abraham Lincoln
While the Great Depression occurred throughout America, impacting all, those who were part of any minority, including Blacks, suffered greatly. With a decrease in jobs, those who were black were often laid off and turned away from jobs so that whites could be hired. Blacks were also subjected to the same segregation they had experienced for years. With the economic hardships what they were, James Farmer became an expert at being both thrifty and creative in all the things he worked for.
“Though still limited by discrimination and segregation at home, their sojourn in Europe during WWI and WWII made many black servicemen aware that the racial attitudes so common among white Americans did not prevail everywhere else. The knowledge that skin color did not preclude dignity and respect made many black veterans unwilling to submit quietly to continuing racial discrimination once they returned to the United States”
-- Red Stone Arsenal, AL
"White men and colored men are welded together with a deep friendship and respect born of combat and matured by a realization that such an association is not the impossibility that many of us have been led to believe.... When men undergo the same privations, face the same dangers before an impartial enemy, there can be no segregation. My men eat, play, work, and sleep as a company of men, with no regard to color."
-- Unknown Battalion Commander 78th devision
LIFE AT THE TIME