Whilst the war was happening there was a surge in black labour in the north, which resulted in a large scale migration of blacks to try and get their hand in this prosperous time. It also created what was called the VV Campaign. The VV stood for victory at war and victory at home. This was initiated by the Pittsburgh Courier a black newspaper. This helped lead to the blacks wanting promotions, better basic wages and better housing. Before the war and even still after the war blacks lived in places like Brooklyn which was also known as a ghetto. If you lived in these and if you were black it was more than likely you lived in one or the equivalent to one at the time you would find it very hard to get a better life because when you had a job it would be less than what a white man got paid doing the same job as you. However occasionally black men were given promotions above white people which are the basis of the racial tension between the blacks and whites apart from skin colour that is. A prime example of this was in 1943 when a black man earned a promotion and some white men walked out and waited for the black men after their shifts and started what was meant to be a fight but turned into a riot in which 25 black men were killed and ironically mainly by the police and 9 white people were also killed. This is proof that even when the blacks were starting to get better and equal job opportunities it was always going to be tainted by the white man. This is because the whites were not happy and thought that the blacks should always be below them no matter what they are below in whether it was housing, education or jobs.
When it came to political aspects the blacks never really gained too much although of what they did achieve in some instances it was to turn out a landmark for there attempt to achieve civil rights. There was a number of different events which were seen as good in the blacks eye, these were the proposed march on Washington 1941, The Congress of Racial Equality, The Committee on Civil Rights the National Association for the advancement of Coloured people and a man called James Farmer was also respected for what he did for the Civil Rights advancement.
In 1940 the population of blacks working for the armament Industries was miniscule, in fact only 10% of the blacks were working for these industries and this was whilst the war was going on. So a commission called the Fair Employment Practices Commission was set up to gain equality in the opportunities in jobs for the blacks. This did have some effect because there was a 25% increase in jobs involving working with steel and iron. However although the FEPC was set up to help employment chances for black people there was probably a 99.9% that this had not changed any of the white employers minds and beliefs because they had been raised to hate the black man and to think they are below them.
So in 1941 a man called A. Phillip Randolph, the president of The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (Black Trade Union), proposed a march on the nation’s capital Washington. The proposed march was put together to put pressure on President Roosevelt to guarantee jobs for blacks in the Wartime Armament Industries. However at the last minute the march was cancelled due to President Roosevelt capitulated to the demands made by Randolph and issued the 1st Executive Order which protected African Americans Civil rights since the emancipation Proclamation. However this yet again would be a landmark in time but during the 40’s and %0’s it would not be as the whites would still have to have changed their beliefs. Randolph also managed to persuade the next President (Truman) to ban racial discrimination in the military.
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded in 1942 as the Committee of Racial Equality by an interracial group of students in Chicago, Illinois. Many of these students were members of the Chicago branch of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), a pacifist organization seeking to change racist attitudes. The founders of CORE were deeply influenced by Indian nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi's teachings of non-violent resistance. CORE started as a non-hierarchical, decentralized organization funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of its members. The organization was initially co-led by white University of Chicago student George Houser and black student James Farmer. In 1942 CORE began protests against segregation in public accommodations by organizing sit-ins.
Core played an important role for the civil rights movement, as it grabbed the attention of both black and white people by protesting non violently in such ways as sit ins at shops and swimming pools, whilst taking both verbal and physical abuse of white people. Due to this it started to expand nationally and the expansion was mainly of white students who had gone to university listened to what was happening and believed that what the blacks were fighting for should be achieved. This was a strong point for the black population of America who were fighting for racial equality because these students would then start to bring up their new found beliefs on racism in their children. However there was still a vast amount of whites who strongly opposed racial equality.
Core also tested the Supreme court ruling of segregation on buses when they crossed state borders. CORE sent 8 whites and 8 blacks on a bus journey which crossed a state border and 4 people were arrested. This showed that although the supreme court had made the ruling some states were still not happy with that decision and attempted to keep segregation going for as long as they could. This got a great deal of publicity and was the start of a long campaign of direct actions.
In terms of the economic aspects there was a good success rate. During the war the black soldiers as mentioned before did receive some equality but back home it was a different story. Although before the war 935,000 blacks were unemployed and by 1945 151,000 were unemployed this does not show the whole story.
Due to the second world war a huge amount of blacks were employed due to the FEPC and its policies but it was also to do with the fact that more weapons and ammunition and basic requirements for a war were needed more than ever. Thus blacks were given jobs. However when the war had ended these jobs would no longer be needed thus the blacks lost them and once the white soldiers came back the blacks would struggle to get a decent job.
In terms of education the blacks had it hard. $179 was spent on every single white person in school whereas only $43 was spent a a black child. The schools were also worse than the whites. The chances were that a black child would have to walk to school and sometimes it would be a couple of miles to their nearest one. The teaching was 20% worse than in a white school thus blacks never had a fair chance to get a good education and therefore job and life in general.
As you can see in all three topics the blacks did find some improvements but in comparison it was very little to what was still going on. There for as my conclusion I think that the blacks were still along way away from racial equality but had found good foundations for achieving racial equality.
