![]() ![]() Social pressure to end segregation also increased during and after the war. The NAACP-emboldened by the record of black servicemen in the war, a new corps of brilliant young lawyers, and steady financial support from white philanthropists-initiated major attacks against discrimination and segregation, even in the Jim Crow South. World War II spurred a new militancy among African Americans. Six states denied American Indians access to the ballot, basing their decision on illiteracy, residency, nontaxation, and wardship status. Chinese Americans, emboldened in part by the role of China as an American ally in the war, struggled against America's deeply rooted and institutionalized anti-Chinese racism, thereby inching closer to abolishing racist ideology in immigration policies. In the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943, white servicemen in Los Angeles attacked Hispanic teenagers, who received no police protection. Nearly 110,000 persons of Japanese descent from Oregon, Washington, and California were removed to internment camps pursuant to Executive Order 9066, which authorized the clearing of civilians from "military areas" but were only applied to Japanese Americans. The formation of the FEPC also led to the first legal case centered on civil rights issues regarding equal employment for Hispanics, whose leaders appeared before the FEPC and protested the exclusion of Hispanics from many war industries because employers considered them "aliens" despite their American citizenship.Įven as people of color served in the military, those at home still faced racial discrimination from federal and local governments. To assure compliance, he formed the Federal Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) its hearings exposed racial discrimination practices and helped migrants in the North get work. President Roosevelt responded by taking action to ban discrimination in defense industries. African Americans threatened a "March on Washington" in 1941, in their demand for a fair share of jobs and an end to segregation in government departments and the armed forces. Approximately 65,000 Indians left their reservations to work in the wartime industries and serve in the armed forces. Employers encouraged millions of married women and mothers to work outside the home for the first time, a move that for some women led to postwar employment. The defense industry created jobs that eventually brought about social and legislative reform. The armed forces blended soldiers and sailors from across the nation into military units, although minorities were confined to racially segregated commands or occupations. Changes in public policy at the federal level augured the end of racial segregation, and civil rights became a national issue for the first time since the Reconstruction era. Black migration to the North, where the right to vote was available, encouraged the Democratic and Republican Parties to solicit African American supporters. Work in wartime industry and service in the armed forces, combined with the ideals of democracy, and spawned a new civil rights agenda at home that forever transformed American life.
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