Discrimination was also felt socially in black lives in America, especially in the South of the country, were racist views were stronger than in the North. Where equal employment opportunities were a problem in the North, the political stance of blacks in the South was a big problem as very few were awarded the vote. This was because the white people considered themselves to be first-class citizens with the blacks below them. Therefore their feelings and views should not be considered equal to there own. Also, if the black people were given the vote, it would grant them an opportunity to change the discrimination cast upon them, and so the whites could not take advantage of them. This led to great numbers of people enlisting in the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People) and numbers rose from 50,000 in 1940 to 450,000 in just 5 years. For the first time, blacks were being given an opinion and a voice so that they could protest against the injustice they felt and begin to challenge white supremacy.
A US justice department for civil rights was set up to tackle issues such as lynching and police brutality in the South. President Truman made many contributions to the changes, giving speeches and making symbolic gestures to aid the civil rights movement. He set up a Civil Rights Committee that called for radical improvements in all areas – laws concerning lynching, poll tax, voting rights, fair employment, transport, the armed forces and federal departments and administration. The organisation CORE (Congress Of Racial Equality) helped the NAACP put pressure on the courts to make sometimes unprecedented judgements. Three landmark Supreme Court rulings were made in 1950 - HENDERSON vs. US declared segregation on railway dining carts illegal, McLAURIN vs. OKLAHOMA STATE decided that Oklahoma university must be integrated and SWEATT vs. PAINTER ruled that blacks must be allowed to attend Texas Law School. These improvements were not all achieved in Truman's time, President Eisenhower also played a key part in three events during the 1950's. The BROWN ruling of 1954, the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956 and the incident at Little Rock High School in 1957 led to desegregation in education and in public transport. This made a big difference to blacks everyday lives in America and sent a message to whites, showing that desegregation was fighting its way into an unequal and unjust country. The 2nd World War, President Truman and the growing civil rights movements and its organisations were all key factors in this advance.
It was not just time that varied the status of the blacks in America. The division geographically also played a big part in how the blacks were treated. As a generalisation, it was said that the north was much more sympathetic towards the lives of blacks and did a lot more than the south to create an equal society. The 1920s and 30s had already seen a shift of blacks from South to North. As more military industry was needed during World War Two, many blacks moved to the industrial cities of the north and west for guaranteed work and wages. This ‘Great Migration’ saw over 500 000 relocate in just 4 years. The North was more liberal and as a result blacks were given more of a chance. Blacks realised that they were in a better situation working in the north as they had been in the southern states, this was because they no longer had to endure and suffer from the so-called ‘de jure’ segregation that was enforced by law in the South. This improved the lives of blacks in many ways, legally they were allowed to share the same public facilities (transport, restaurants etc.), they were supposed to have equal employment opportunities and they were able to cast their vote freely. This was something that was considered to be unthought of in the southern society. They were supposed to have equal standing to whites socially, economically and politically. However, in reality they were subject to ‘de facto’ discrimination. This meant that although they were granted equal rights by law, they were still seen as second-class citizens. They were still discriminated against as many whites resented their presence seeing them as competition for jobs and housing etc. As a result, they often lived in poor conditions and did suffer discrimination by whites in many areas. It is thought that this was because although laws had changed, it didn't mean that the opinions of the white people automatically changed as well.
These racial opinions of the white stretches right back to the 1600's and the history of slavery where blacks were brought to America as slaves to work on the Southern sugar plantations. They were the property of their ‘owners’ and were seen to have no rights at all because they were an inferior class of people. Slavery was only abolished in 1965 after the north defeated the south in the civil war and declared that all races were to be treated equal. This did not mean an end to the injustice however, as the opinions of the southerners were not changed by the abolishment. As many of the white racists were in high positions of power, this made it very difficult for equality to be enforced, as it took a long time for the southerners to realise that the discrimination should be eradicated. Discrimination was effectively made legal, leaving the blacks at the bottom of society. Many state laws were introduced to combat the federal laws demanding equality and this created major divisions in all areas of life. An example of this is in Little Rock, where although a law was passed to desegregation in education, Orville Faubus still protested this and did his upmost to stop black children from attending the local school. The authorities employed segregational policies, separating blacks from whites and the blacks usually ended up worse off.
It was not only socially, and economically that blacks were affected, but also politically. In 1940 virtually no blacks living in the South were able to vote as this was because with segregationist made it almost impossible for blacks to register and black politicians were unheard of. Without the vote, blacks could not be considered equal or do anything to change there situation. So both the black civil rights organisations and the government intervened with much resistance from the white southerners. In 1944 the Supreme Court ruled that the exclusion of blacks from primaries was unconstitutional in the SMITH vs. ALLWRIGHT case. Statistics show that this made a difference to the lives of blacks by the end of the 1950's due to the Civil Rights bills in 1955 and 1958 combined with pressure from black rights organisations. Just 3% of blacks were registered to vote in 1940, but this was raised to 23% by 1959. This showed the blacks of America that the southern states were slowly becoming more like the equal northern states. So although the status of black people was not yet completely equal to whites in any part of the USA, the north was generally a better and safer place for blacks to live in for social, economic and political reasons between 1940 and 1960.
In conclusion, it is seen that the status of black Americans differed greatly throughout the USA during the 1940's and 50's. Advances were made socially, with the introduction of desegregated education with the BROWN ruling of 1954, economically with 11 states and 20 cities having fair employment laws by 1952, and also politically with the number of blacks eligible to vote gradually increasing during the 20 year period. Changes were made and laws were gradually passed to encourage an equal society so the conditions so the status of blacks was better in 1960 than it was in 1940. This was due to Presidents Truman and Eisenhower and the black organisations focused on improving the civil rights situation. The divided feeling geographically also gave a differing status for blacks, with the north setting an example to the south of the beginnings of an equal society.