Civil Rights Movement Research Paper

The civil rights movement became a defining moment for the African American community in the 1940s to the 1960s fighting for their rights given by the constitution but deprived of it. African Americans were denied equal opportunity and their civil liberties. Protests from the African American community, the March of Washington in 1941, led by A. Philip Randolph, black labor leader, sparked the civil rights movements with its demand for defense employment, a national anti-lynching law, and an end to segregation (Foner 848). This became one of the very first victories of the civil rights movement as it led to FDR issuing the executive order of 9902, which banned discrimination in jobs and established the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) …show more content…
WWII occurred with the American military being segregated. With that in mind, the African American community sees an opportunity to promote integration between the racial divide at the time. The tactic of publicity was heavily emphasized during WWII to promote ideals of civil freedom as America was fighting for the freedom of the new world. African American owned newspaper companies like The Crisis became known for its statement that a segregated army “cannot fight for a free world” (879). The Pittsburgh Courier, another Black newspaper company, uses WWII to popularize their phrase “Double-V”. The Double-V phrase symbolized the black attitudes during the war which meant a victory at Germany meant that it must also be accompanied by a victory over segregation in the US (Foner 879). Another form of tactic used by African Americans to regain their rights was through the form of strikes. Strikes were used to combat discrimination. The strike at Firestone tire factory fired a black woman for entering a city bus before the white passengers had entered the bus, resulting into a strike until the woman was reinstated (Foner …show more content…
Litigation, tactic wherein the matter is taken into legal action, was a common tactic by the African American community to fight for their rights in the 1950s. The Smith v. Allwright case was a case taken to the supreme court which outlawed the white primaries, one of the mechanisms that deprived the rights of southern African Americans (Foner 850). Another case that became a major component that slowly dwindled down segregation in America was the Brown v. Board of Education case which outlawed school segregation. The two year long case had finally ended in 1954 when the supreme court had finally come to a conclusion that it had violated the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment (Foner 959). The litigation tactic became very successful during the 50’s wherein groups used this tactic to win back deprived rights from the African American community. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), famous activist group, was known for this using litigation as a way to fight for African American rights at the time. In particular, the NAACP had been pressing legal challenges to the “separate but equal” clause presented by the Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896 (Foner 958). The NAACP advocated for laws to ban discrimination and called for the end of racial inequality in America alongside with the American Jewish Congress (AJC). The

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