Civil rights and equality in American society

• Since the Bolshevik revolution, the USSR exploited racial tensions to criticize the U.S. This was even more true during the Cold War.
• In May 1948, the Surpreme Court ruled unconstitutional contracts prohibiting the sales of homes to African Americans and Jews
• In July 1948, Harry Truman ended segregation in the U.S. armed forces
• Segregation was still in place by law in the South and by customs in the North (de facto segregation)
• In 1954, in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled (9-0) that segregation was against the 14th Amendment.
• Resistance in the South against the Brown v. Board : some counties closed their schools and bypassed the law by opening “private academies”.
• On Dec. 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American woman, got arrested for refusing to sit at the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama
• Martin Luther King helped organize a boycott against Brown v. Board of Education, that would last a year
• In 1957, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), led by Martin Luther King, decided to organize peaceful sit-ins in public places reserved for white people.
• In 1957, the governor of Arkansas prevented 9 black children to attend public school.

  Eisenhower intervened and sent the National Guard to remove the crowd blocking the school and escort the students

  ->It shower the federal power taking over state power
• On Sep. 9, 1957, Eisenhower signed a first Civil Rights Act into law, strengthening voting rights for African Americans