To what extent was Federal government responsible for improving the status of black people in the US in the years 1945-55?

by shaun_shah (student)

To what extent was federal government responsible from improving the status of black people in the US in the years 1945-55?

The status of black people living in America had changed incredibly in the years 1945-55. This is because of the different presidents, congress, and the Supreme Court. Although I believe that the federal government was highly responsible for improving the status of black people in the years 1945-55, this essay will also be examining other factors that may have helped; factors such as Martin Luther King, other groups, and the media.

To a certain extent, the Supreme Court played a considerable part in improving the status of black people in the US in the years 1945-55. For example, court cases such as Brown vs Topeka (1954), Browder vs Gayle (1956), and Morgan vs Virgina (1946) were all very important in improving the status of black people. This is because the Topeka case argued that the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine was a contradiction in terms, that is to say they believed that it was impossible for citizens to receive services that were both ‘separate’ and ‘equal’, The Browder case decision ruled that segregation of buses was illegal and the Morgan case ruled that segregation on interstate buses was illegal which meant that on buses both black and white people had the same status. This is why the Supreme Court played a considerable part in improving the status of black people in the years 1945-55, because all of these cases picked apart the legal basis of segregation which led to the status of black people being improved.

However, although the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Brown vs Topeka was a landmark decision that marked an end to the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’, enforcing the decision proved to be very difficult. Not only did middle class whites set up the White Citizens’ Councils to demand that segregation continued in local schools(by 1956 250,000 people had joined the White citizens’ Councils), but councils campaigned for the election of local politicians who were strongly opposed to desegregation, there was a revival in the activity of the KKK, and Senator Harry Byrd called on Southerners to put up ...

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Congress could also be considered as a factor that didn’t considerably improve the status of black people. Even though Congress’s support was essential for progress in terms of civil rights legislation, it was greatly hindered by Southern Congressmen. Because Southern States had a significant voice in Congress, Southern senators and Congressmen obstructed civil rights legislation from 1945 to 1960. This was the case during Truman’s presidency. He was simply unable to overcome the opposition of Congress. Because of this, he avoided using Congress as a way of passing legislation and instead pushed executive orders. Examples of these would be executive order 9980 which guaranteed fair employment practices in the civil service and executive order 10308 establishing the Committee on Government Contract Compliance (CGCC). Another example where Congress was ineffective was when Eisenhower passed the 1st and 2nd civil rights acts. When the voting rights bill was introduced to congress by Eisenhower, Democratic opponents filibusted the bill which significantly weakened it, and even though the second voting rights bill passed, it was still too weak and therefore ineffective. Black voting only increased by 3%. If Truman had gotten more support then he would have been able to achieve everything in his report ‘To secure these rights’, and he would have been able to tackle lynching issues, police brutality, voting rights, discrimination in the armed forces, employment and education and radical discrimination in the area of health. This is why Congress didn’t improve the status of black people, because without sufficient support then the presidents cannot help to improve their status.

However, Congress did help improve the status of black people in some aspects. The 3rd civil rights bill is one of the examples.