The impact of World War II on the circumstances of African Americans in the United States

Question 1

What were the conditions in the US regarding African Americans before WW2?

Answer 1

1940 (before war):
→ 13 million black Americans in US
→ 6.5 million lived in rural south
→ 3 million lived elsewhere in south
→ The income of blacks were 39% of whites

Question 2

How did African American military service during WWII contribute to demands for civil rights and what was the significance?

Answer 2

1942: The Negro Soldier Frank Capra - convinced African Americans to enlist in army
→ 125,000 African Americans served overseas

1944: The Battle of the Bulge became a degree
→ allow 2000 black servicemen to serve under white command

Exposed the hypocrisy of fighting for democracy abroad while being denied basic rights at home, which empowered a generation of Black veterans to demand civil rights, laying the groundwork for postwar activism

Question 3

What were some of the main events in the birth of civil rights post-WW2?

Answer 3

• Isaac Woodward’s beating (1946)
• Brown v Board of Education (1954)
• Murder of Emmet Till (1955)

Question 4

Who was Isaac Woodward?

Answer 4

1946: A black WWII veteran who was brutally beaten and permanently blinded by a white police officer in South Carolina just hours after being honorably discharged from the army

The sheriff, Lynwood Shull, indicted, went to trial, acquitted by an white jury in 15 minutes

Question 5

What was Isaac Woodward’s significance?

Answer 5

Woodward’s brutal blinding in uniform → sparked outrage and national attention
→ NAACP’s Walter White met with President Truman, demanding justice
→ 1946: Truman established the President’s Committee on Civil Rights to investigate racial violence and discrimination
→ 1948: Truman issued Executive Order 9981, desegregating the U.S. armed forces and marking the first major federal action toward civil rights reform.

Question 6

What was the Brown v Board of Education case and its significance?

Answer 6

It challenged the “separate but equal” doctrine, leading to the desegregation of public schools after a local school in Topeka denied a black child school enrollment. Became a catalyst for future desegregation.

Question 7

Who was Emmet Till and what was his significance?

Answer 7

14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched after being accused of flirting with a white woman, Carolyn Bryant.

He was beaten, mutilated, shot and sunk him in the Tallahatchie River

Despite Bryant admitting to lying, the all-white jury acquitted the men who murdered Till.

Open-coffin funeral to focus attention on racism and the barbarism of lynching and the limitations and vulnerabilities of American democracy + proved a catalyst for the movement