The Inter-War Years

The Inter-War Years and the Second World War

This was a period of great change in civil rights. War, economic circumstance and government policy together created an environment in which change was possible, but the degree and success of change need to be assessed.

Although America had a pro-segregation President (Woodrow Wilson) when she entered the First World War in 1917, there were significant opportunities for African Americans created by his decision to go to war. African Americans served with distinction in campaigns in France, accepted by French forces used to the presence of their own colonial troops. That the French were more tolerant, and that they therefore experienced a greater degree of acceptance, meant that African American soldiers were more likely to return with more determination to see a change to their rights and status in American society. Some of those who stayed in the USA moved north in search of employment in the better paid industrial sector. Although they worked well, many were sacked when white Americans returned from the Front, creating a resentment which was fuelled by white American aggression toward returning African American and Native American soldiers. In addition, African Americans had moved into formerly white areas, like Harlem, creating black ghettos. Competition for housing added to that for work and together these were the source of race riots in the Midwest (notably Chicago) in the Red Summer of 1919. African Americans in northern states had voting rights that they were denied in the south, fuelling white anger and resentment, especially as the growing numbers of African Americans in the north gave them increasing political influence and they elected black officials.

The ‘Roaring Twenties’ created a huge economic boom which made the USA the envy of the rest of the world. However, beneath the veneer of prosperity lay a deeply divided society. There was still a substantial band of poverty (despite Hoover’s claims that poverty was ‘vanishing’) across all races and colours; prejudice, discrimination and racism continued to mount. Levels of poverty were appalling: 60% American families (70 million people) were living below the poverty line. Although such poverty was nationwide, in the South it bit hardest: with literacy levels low, it was particularly difficult for African Americans to fight their way out of the poverty trap; many African Americans were working the land in the south at a time when agriculture was suffering. Literacy and property qualifications also denied them the right to vote and therefore they had no political voice. Legislation did little to help, not least because of tariff wars (1922) which left farmers penalised, unable to export their crops because of retaliatory tariffs after the American government decided to protect industry from foreign competition (the ‘nullification crisis’ revisited).

The Ku Klux Klan, which had reformed in Georgia in 1915, was increasingly active and open, targeting anyone who was not white and Protestant, and gathered considerable political influence in the early 1920s. It was only with accusations of corruption and enquiries that followed that the Klan began to wane in the later 1920s, but this was a passing phase and it was to remain a violent, hostile and secretive organisation for decades to come.

American society was also fearful of political movements (especially Bolshevism, which led to the 1919 Palmer Raids: see Heinemann, p77) and of unshackled immigration, hence the Quota Act (1921) and the National Origins Act (1924): see Heinemann, p76 and the harsh response to Italian immigrant anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti who were executed for murder in 1927. In such an atmosphere of tension, civil rights were highly unlikely to make much progress.

The Great Depression, which followed the 1929 Wall Street Crash, saw black America even more vulnerable. Destitution affected many in almost every sector of society; unemployment levels reached unprecedented heights; local government cut back on expenditure, with segregated facilities, such as schools, the hardest hit. In rural areas, each cotton harvest made a loss, but African American farmers did not have the savings to survive such pressure; in urban areas, half the African Americans were unemployed, and white Americans became so desperate for work that they applied for menial jobs (such as garbage collection and domestic service) which had traditionally been seen as the ‘Negro jobs’; they even murdered African American workers so as to take their jobs. The cardboard city that grew up on the White House lawns was testament to the paralysis of Hoover’s administration, and he was roundly defeated in the Presidential election of 1933 by Democrat Franklin D Roosevelt. This marked a sea change in American politics: the Republicans were losing the support of African Americans (previously pro-Republican as the party of Lincoln and the emancipation Proclamation) who were turning to the Democrats in the hope of a better deal. Roosevelt’s package of economic measures known as the New Deal is therefore worthy of detailed study [see notes from JAN and SCL].

Field: The roots of twentieth century civil rights legislation may be found in the New Deal years of President Franklin D Roosevelt.

Dierenfield: FDR developed relief programs for all Americans, relied on a black cabinet of advisers, and invited opera singer Marian Anderson to sing on federal property when she could not appear in a private concert hall. Under his leadership, the government hired many blacks for construction jobs, built the first subsidised housing, and taught black farmers how to read and how to diversify their crops. But his New Deal programs discriminated against blacks, and he did not life a finger to outlaw lynching, the poll tax, or segregated neighborhoods. Although some blacks initially concluded that the ‘new deal’ was really a ‘raw deal’, most deserted Hoover’s ‘do-nothing’ Republican party- the party of emancipation- and moved permanently to the Democrats. Discuss the basis and validity of this view.

Sanders also points out that distribution of help set up within the confines of the New Deal was erratic: Sometimes aid did not reach the persons for whom it was intended, particularly in the South where aid was distributed by whites. The role of the First Lady was critical to the success of the New Deal, especially in the South. She publicly sat at biracial public meetings, such as that at Birmingham, Alabama, in 1938, and privately she harangued laggardly officials. This approach was impossible for FDR, who needed the political support of the very southern Democrats who were likely to be alienated by the New Deal. As well as putting forward an economic program for recovery, FDR set up the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department in 1938, a government agency specifically designed to assist African Americans to achieve integration. Gradually it built up a group of effective and skilled lawyers who campaigned vigorously first of all for the right of blacks to vote in national elections and to be free of police brutality, and later (with the NAACP) to achieve full integration of schools and to extend civil rights legislation.

Field argues that the New Deal may have brought about economic improvement for African Americans but it did not further the cause of civil rights. The ‘Roosevelt Coalition’ of liberal black and white voters in the north and traditional-Democrat southern whites was divided on the issue of civil rights, and therefore the President was unable to pursue an extension of civil rights, even if he had wanted to do so.

The Second World War increased the pressure for change and improvement in civil rights. The horrors of Fascism gave new spirit to the campaign for civil rights. As one black soldier from Alabama commented: I spent four years in the army to free a bunch of Dutchmen and Frenchmen, and I’m hanged if I’m going to let the Alabama version of the Germans kick me around when I get home. No sirree-bob! I went into the Army a nigger; I’m comin’ out a man.’ (quoted in Dierenfield) Although segregated units fought in Europe, William Hastie (a black Federal judge appointed civilian aide to Secretary of War Cordell Hull) fought against segregation in the armed forces and pressed for equal opportunities for African American servicemen. Opportunities did develop as segregation became less apparent, not least because African Americans acquitted themselves well under fire.

Whilst war was being waged, African Americans at home played an important part in wartime production, although the numbers employed in such industries remained small: according to Field, there were 2 million African Americans in industry and 200 000 in Federal service: this amounted to an increase from 3 to 9% of the industrial workforce. Even so, there was a significant shift of African Americans from rural areas to the towns in search of better paid work. The need for black workers in wartime industries gave the African Americans and the unions much greater bargaining power. As the northern cities became more crowded and there was no government help for newly arrived blacks, tension rose and in some areas violence and crime increased; however, this proximity also led to a stronger sense of community. At the same time, membership of trade unions and the NAACP reached an all-time high and they found that they could work effectively together. Those African Americans who stayed at home staged the ‘Double V’ campaign, against dictatorship abroad, and discrimination and segregation at home. So effective was this campaign that it forced President Roosevelt to prohibit discriminatory practices both in government and in all sources of employment linked to the war effort (1941). This was to be policed by the Fair Employment Practice Commission which became permanent in 1945 on the order of President Truman but which lacked the funding to make a real difference.

The Second World War period was also important for the creation of CORE (1942), the Congress of Racial Equality, which was a forerunner of the activism of the 1950s and 1960s. CORE adopted a non-violent approach similar to that of Gandhi, which its founder James Farmer thought would be especially effective in wartime; it organised sit-ins in segregated restaurants in Chicago and demanded desegregation of interstate transport; however, given the employment opportunities created by the war, the prospect of wartime prosperity and fears of seeming unpatriotic, most African Americans thought the radicals eccentric or even irresponsible.