Integration vs Segregation: The Struggle in the Southern Collegiate System The time after World War II (Postwar 1950s, and 60s) was a time of change in America. The main change from the time from before the war was the rise of Liberalism. This political idea would bring about changes in in the economic and the industrial corners of the world. Due to this we saw the rise of consumerism in teenagers and also the stimulation of the housing and automobile industries. It also saw the rise highway construction and suburban society (known as Levitowns or suburbia). However it did not bring change to an issue that had been within the United States since really when the country had begun. This problem was racial discrimination and it was an idea that …show more content…
was not changed even with all the change that came in the postwar era. This would lead to the beginning of the postwar civil rights movement. This movement was fought on a number of boards such as sit-ins and non-violent protests but, there was another battle being fought and it was on college campuses. The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) fought for black and colored educational values to be implemented into colleges across the United States but was often met with opposition at almost every turn by white segregationists’ goals to keep the college campuses “pure” due to their racist views. During the time of the postwar era many blacks would often only receive a maximum of a high school education within their respective state. However even though they received an education it was not often the same type of education that whites were receiving at the time. This was due to the rulings of the court case Plessy v. Ferguson (1869) which ruled that the segregated facilities, whether it be schools, restaurants, or railroad cars, are constitutional as long as it is “separate but equal” (americanhistory.si.edu). However, even though the court case says that the facilities were to remain “separate but equal” this was hardly the case for any facility, especially the college school systems. In collegiate system of the Deep South many Universities were white only with many other universities being described as all black colleges. Many times the white universities would prove to be more prestigious than the black colleges during the time. This would of course cause whites to get better jobs in the workforce of the postwar era causing blacks to take lower earning jobs and also be ridiculed by the more enriched whites who were both rich in education and wealth. This caused the NAACP to want to take a bigger role in the desegregation of college institutions such as the University of Georgia, University of Alabama, University of Mississippi, and also other white universities across the Deep South. However this would prove a more difficult task than the desegregationist could have imagined. The segregationists of the time was contempt on keeping their public universities “ pure” ( all white) no matter what the federal government had to say.
They believed that blacks would be a plague upon the Universities of the south. As Governor of Georgia Herman Talmedge said “erasing segregation in schools is a step towards National suicide”. (Pratt 31) Many Southern politicians, professors, and students also believed that people that supported the desegregation of schools or supported the Civil Rights Movement believed them to be part of the Communists Party. Roy V. Harris, a member of the Board of Regents at the University of Georgia, once stated that ideas of mixing and mingling races in this country were ideas of the Communist Party. (Pratt 33). Another view from students and professors at southern “pure” universities was that the African American race was evolutionary inferior to that of a common white man thus making their intelligence much less than. This was argued to be one of the reasons that blacks could and should not be admitted to prestigious white universities due to their lack intelligence due to an evolution defect. After a racial riot at the University of Georgia Math 254 Professor Thomas Brahana, who agreed that schools should be integrated, asked his students to write their views on integration. One student wrote “The main reason I say I do not want to integration is that I believe the Negroid race is inferior to the Caucasian race… The Negro has an …show more content…
average of one eighth more bone thickness on their skull. This leads one to believe that the Negro has not come as far in evolution as the “White” man.” (Pratt 101,102) Segregationists also believed that blacks of the time had low moral standards due to the high number of court cases involving black crimes and also the amount of taxes many blacks paid compared to whites at the time. (Pratt 102) Segregationists strongly believed in what they thought of the African American race at the time and wanted to keep their campuses free of what they thought to be communists that were evolutionarily inferior people and had bad moral character. They would use these arguments to keep blacks out of the white university system in order to keep things segregated and have whites still in power. On the other side of the spectrum we had desegregationist who wanted white universities of the Deep South to allow the mixing of races within the educational system. The NAACP saw that many black students would graduate high school with ambitions to go to college. This would leave the students with two options which left black students in a lose-lose situation. Their first option was to attend an in-state black college that was less prestigious than the other white colleges in the area. This would leave many black college graduates to be left wondering if they could even get a job in their respective field of study or would they lose the job to a more prestigious white college graduate with a more worthwhile degree. The second option for blacks was to take financial aid from an in-state white university in order to pursue a degree out-of-state at a college that supported integration. However even though these universities would provide financial aid for tuition, room and board they would not pay for the student to visit family during breaks, and also would not provide financial aid for dining opportunities. This led many members and supporters of NAACP to push for blacks to be allowed into public white universities across the south. Once the NAACP started to push for blacks to be integrated into white collegial institutions many blacks supported the movement.
While many whites argued that the black race was inferior to that of the race of intellect, many civil rights activists and NAACP members claimed that their students had the same credentials to get into their colleges as the white students did. The desegregationist claimed if they were not judged by the color of skin that their students could easily graduate from prestigious southern universities such as the University of Mississippi and University of Georgia. This claim was proven when the University of Georgia’s first black students, Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, were admitted to the University of Georgia and would graduate from the University. This alone proved that the segregationist were wrong about evolutionary deformities within the black community. Some supporters of the Civil Rights movement felt like the white supremacy was much like that of “ Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin” much like whites did about the NAACP for trying to integrate public white universities . In a letter from a soldier stationed in Tokyo, Japan he plainly states “Congratulations! You guys have stood firmly to principle… Segregation is a real fuel for Commie Propaganda, and its continuance will certainly endanger the very existence of our country…. Incidentally I’m white and from Texas” (Pratt 35). Even though the segregationist ideas were very harmful on a
personal level it would not deter the ideas and the moral character of the desegregationist. Many desegregationist supported non-violent protests in order for black students to be admitted into southern white schools. These protests were based on other non-violent civil rights leaders throughout America at the time. If blacks had such bad moral character then why did they participate in non-violent protests instead of violent ones like their segregationist companions? The many claims of the white segregationist were answered by the desegregationist in a non-violent way allowing blacks to get their point across all across the nation. The postwar era was full of change in the way people would view things. Eventually racial relations within the collegial educational field was brought to the forefront of these changes. With segregationists fighting for what they believed to be the right thing for not allowing an evolutionarily inefficient race into their halls of study, and desegregationist fighting for their rights of education we saw the clashing of many ideals during this period. With victories and losses on both side of the dispute but many ideas were formed from this period of social and political unrest which would shape the way things would be seen in the near future of the United States.
After the end of World War II, the United States went through many changes. Most of the changes were for the better, but some had an adverse effect on certain population centers. Many programs, agencies and policies were created to transform American society and government.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s race was a huge issue in America. Jackie Robinson, however, was one of the main reasons that changed,
The American home front during World War II is recalled warmly in popular memory and cultural myth as a time of unprecedented national unity, years in which Americans stuck together in common cause. World War II brought many new ideas and changes to American life. Even though World War II brought no physical destruction to the United States mainland, it did affect American society. Every aspect of American life was altered by U.S. involvement in the war including demographics, the labor force, economics and cultural trends. During the Great Depression, the American birth rate had fallen to an all-time low due to delayed marriages and parenthood.
During the time of World War II, there was a dramatic change in the society of America and its way of life. Men were needed at war, and the women were left at home. People were mistrusted and were falsely accused of something they didn’t do. Some people were even pushed away because they were different. These people are the minorities of America.
American minorities made up a significant amount of America’s population in the 1920s and 1930s, estimated to be around 11.9 million people, according to . However, even with all those people, there still was harsh segregation going on. Caucasians made African-Americans work for them as slaves, farmers, babysitters, and many other things in that line. Then when World War II came, “World War II required the reunification and mobilization of Americans as never before” (Module2). They needed to cooperate on many things, even if they didn’t want to. These minorities mainly refer to African, Asian, and Mexican-Americans. They all suffered much pain as they were treated as if they weren’t even human beings. They were separated, looked down upon, and wasn’t given much respect because they had a different culture or their skin color was different. However, the lives of American minorities changed forever as World War 2 impacted them significantly with segregation problems, socially, and in their working lives, both at that time and for generations after.
Those studying the experience of African Americans in World War II consistently ask one central question: “Was World War II a turning point for African Americans?” In elaboration, does World War II symbolize a prolongation of policies of segregation and discrimination both on the home front and the war front, or does it represent the start of the Civil Rights Movement that brought racial equality? The data points to the war experience being a transition leading to the civil rights upheavals of the 1960s.
Since the beginning of slavery, African Americans have been held at a lower standard for education. American government prohibited African Americans from learning how to read, developing inequality in education and further success. White supremacists’ intentions were to allow White Americans to continue to prosper further and create barriers to prevent African Americans from succeeding. An academic journalist, Nathaniel Jackson, employed the words of John Ogbu of the University of Berkley, “…the monopolization of resources for academic enterprise (colleges, universities, foundation, and government funding agency review boards, journals, and other publishing put-lets) by the dominant group and the provisions of only limited and controlled access
Due to a conglomerate of factors at work in the 1960s there was a growing sense among the American white working class that they would ultimately be completely left out of an ever-evolving, ever-changing America, come the end of the 1970s. Some of the aforementioned factors, namely, are the Civil Rights movements, the economic shifts brought on by political policy changes, and the ever-present controversy surrounding the ongoing Vietnam War. The issue of Civil Rights, and for example, integration, was incredible polarizing in that it caused a great divide and debate among many American demographics. Economically, America was reacting to the effects of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency with the growing impact of policies such as welfare, and
Samuels, Albert L., Black Colleges and the Challenge to Desegregation. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2004.
On February 26, 1946 Herman Sweatt, who had excellent academic credentials and met all standards for acceptance into the university, was denied admission into the University of Texas Law School because of his African American race. At the time, the University of Texas had a separate law school for African Americans to attend because segregation was still widely accepted in the United States. The University of Texas Law School had 16 full-time professors, 3 part-time professors, 850 students, and over 65,000 volumes in their library along with an excellent reputation ("Find Law"). Meanwhile the separate college for African Americans had 5 full-time professors, 23 attending students, and only 16,500 volumes to study (“Find Law”). The inequality between the two schools was obvious, and many applicants began to question change among the university. Herman, along with many others, denied their acceptance into the separate college and decided to fight for equal education. Being on the verging years of civil rights and sixties revolution, the student’s will power was driven by their years of being unequal in their cruel society. These denials would prove to be the beginning of a long and stressful road that would later influence the decision of Brown vs. Board of Education (Cantu).
The United States was a divided nation at the time of World War II. Divided by race and racism. This Division had been much greater in the past with the institution of slavery. As the years went by the those beliefs did deteriorate slowly, but they were still present during the years of World War II. This division was lived out in two forms, legislation and social behavior. The legislation came in the form of the “Jim Crow” laws. The belief that some people were naturally superior and others inferior, scientific racism, was the accepted belief of the time These cultural traits were waning. After World War II ended they would decline even more rapidly.
Prior to World War I there was much social, economic, and political inequality for African Americans. This made it difficult for African Americans to accept their own ethnicity and integrate with the rest of American society. By the end of World War II however African Americans had made great strides towards reaching complete equality, developing their culture, securing basic rights, and incorporating into American society.
The success of Civil Right Movement in the 1960s turned a new historical chapter for African Americans to be protected equally by the law. In this progress against discrimination and racial segregation, there were numerous significant contributions by individuals such as Martin Luther King, Charles K. Steele, Fred L. Shuttlesworth, etc.; also the institutions and communities like Historically Black Colleges and universities (HBCUs). Eventhough Texas Southern University (TSU) has encountered vast difficulties in their progress of establishment and development, they have affirmed the rights, the value and the voice of African Americans because
People worked together to create things like the Bessemer process, a mass production of steels to the first nuclear weapon in 1945 (The first atomic bomb test is successfully exploded). However America came to a wall in the 60’s. Racial discrimination has always been a problem before, but it wasn’t until the 60’s because that was the time when the minorities started to stand up. Martin Luther King Jr said “the freedom I dream would someday ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city (The Dream, the Reality: Civil Rights in the ‘60s and
As more and more African American students were admitted into white Southern schools, segregationists continued to retaliate and defend their schools against them. No matter how difficult the situation turned out for some of them, and without much help from the government, African Americans did everything they possibly could to protect their educational rights for the sake of their future and success, and in the hope of promoting equality for all African American people in the United States. These students became the symbol of freedom and opened up the window of opportunity for all black people, for their ancestors, and for the future generations to come. Works Cited "Eyes on the Prize - 02 - Fighting Back, 1957-1962." YouTube.