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During World War II the U.S. government placed tens of thousands of Japanese Americans in prison camps. The Japanese people lost their homes, jobs, property, and freedoms. The internment, or imprisonment, was the result of racism toward Japanese people living in the United States as well as worry about the war.

On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The United States then entered the war against Japan. The U.S. government believed Japanese people in the country would not be loyal to the United States. The government saw them as enemies. There was no reason for this fear other than racism. In February 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an order. Executive Order 9066 said that the army could keep people out of certain areas. The order did not mention Japanese Americans, but it was clearly about them. There was a large population of Japanese people living on the West Coast. That was the area the government targeted.

In March 1942 the government established the War Relocation Authority (WRA). Its mission was to "take all people of Japanese descent into custody, surround them with troops, prevent them from buying land, and return them to their former homes at the close of the war." At the time there were about 120,000 Japanese living in the western United States. About 80,000 of them were citizens. The government soon began forcing the Japanese to leave their homes to live in camps. The camps were called relocation centers. They were also called concentration camps. Japanese were sent to a total of 10 camps. They were allowed to bring only what they could carry. Therefore, many had to sell everything else or just leave it behind.

In the camps the Japanese people lived in large buildings called barracks. The rooms were furnished only with cots and coal-burning stoves. Residents had to share bathrooms. Surrounding the camps were barbed-wire fences. Guards were told to shoot anyone who tried to leave.

People in the camps were allowed to live in family groups. They set up schools, churches, farms, and newspapers. But the years they spent in the camps were very difficult. The people were worried and upset over what they had lost and how they were treated.

In December of 1944 the U.S. Supreme Court and the administration announced that the Japanese were free to return home. All centers were to be closed by the end of 1945. Actually, the last center closed in 1946. People of Japanese descent were free to move back to where they had once lived and to rebuild their lives. In 1988 the government formally apologized to the Japanese Americans. In addition, the government approved a bill giving a payment of $20,000 to each former prisoner who was still living at the time the bill was signed. About two thirds of the people who had been imprisoned were still living in 1988.

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During World War II the U.S. government placed tens of thousands of Japanese Americans in prison camps. The Japanese people lost their homes, jobs, property, and freedoms....

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The rights of a country's citizens are called civil rights. Many Black Americans were denied full civil rights for about 100 years after the end of slavery. The struggle for...

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The Civil Rights Movement that began in the late 1950's won for African-Americans basic rights long denied to them, inspired other discriminated groups to fight for their own rights, and had a deep effect on American society.
THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

After the Civil War, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution were supposed to guarantee equal rights for African-Americans. But in the South, segregation of the races, the denial of opportunities to African-American, and their disenfranchisement continued in a system known as "Jim Crow laws." In 1896, in a controversial decision, the United States Supreme Court in the case Plessy v. Ferguson upheld the "separate, but equal" facilities for the races.

During World War II, some progress was made as President Roosevelt outlawed discrimination in the defense industry. Moreover, as the country fought for freedom around the world, many African-Americans began to wonder why they did not enjoy those freedoms at home. In 1954, a series of landmark cases testing segregation that were pressed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) culminated in the Supreme Court's ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education case, which unanimously outlawed segregation of public schools.

On December 1, 1955, the modern civil rights movement began when Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, was arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. A new minister in town, Martin Luther King, Jr., organized a bus boycott by the community, which eventually led to the desegregation of the bus line and launched protests across the South. In 1960, spontaneous sit-ins by students began at lunch counters throughout the South, and in 1961, "Freedom Riders" boarded inter-state buses to test and break down segregated accommodations. These protests were peaceful, but they were met with violent, and often, brutal force -- televised images that helped win support from sympathetic whites in the North. In 1963, television viewers saw hundred of thousands of African-Americans and whites march on Washington, DC to end racial discrimination. It was there that Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

After the assassination of President Kennedy and the landslide election of Lyndon Johnson, Congress passed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed racial discrimination in public accommodations and schools and removed obstacles to voting. As part of the Civil Rights Act, the federal government would withhold funds from any state that did not desegregate, and as HEW Secretary, John Gardner was the man holding the purse strings. In 1967, he threatened to cut off $95.8 million in federal welfare funds to the state of Alabama unless it complied with desegregation guidelines. As Gardner remembers, "Civil rights was real hardball."

The passage of the Voting Rights Act, in particular, prompted a massive effort to register African-Americans throughout the South to vote. Again, they were often met with violent resistance. After 1966, the civil rights movement began to fracture between those who favored nonviolent means to achieve integration and younger, more radical leaders who wanted to fight for "black power." This split alienated some white allies, a process that was accelerated by a wave of rioting in black neighborhoods in northern cities throughout 1965 and 1967.

After King was assassinated and more rioting ensued, the civil rights movement as a cohesive effort disintegrated. Yet the push for civil rights continued, with African-Americans making gains economically, politically, and socially. Moreover, other discriminated groups were inspired by the civil rights movement and borrowed its tactics. Over the 1960's and 1970's, gays and lesbians, women, Native Americans, and people with disabilities pushed for their own inclusion in American society.

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PBS - Thematic Window: The Civil Rights Movement

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The Civil Rights Movement that began in the late 1950's won for African-Americans basic rights long denied to them, inspired other discriminated groups to fight for their own rights, and had a deep effect on American society. THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT After the Civil War, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution were supposed to guarantee equal rights for African-Americans.

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World War II: Summary, Combatants & Facts

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World War II was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. Rising to power in an unstable Germany, Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi Party) rearmed the nation and signed treaties with Italy and Japan to further his ambitions of world domination. Hitler’s invasion of Poland drove Great Britain and France to declare war on Germany, and World War II had begun. The majority of the world’s countries eventually formed two opposing alliances: the Allies and the Axis.

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Jim Crow Laws

During Reconstruction, Black people took on leadership roles like never before. They held public office and sought legislative changes for equality and the right to vote.

In 1868, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution gave Black people equal protection under the law. In 1870, the 15th Amendment granted Black American men the right to vote. Still, many white Americans, especially those in the South, were unhappy that people they'd once enslaved were now on a more-or-less equal playing field.

To marginalize Black people, keep them separate from white people and erase the progress they'd made during Reconstruction, " Jim Crow " laws were established in the South beginning in the late 19th century. Black people couldn't use the same public facilities as white people, live in many of the same towns or go to the same schools. Interracial marriage was illegal, and most Black people couldn't vote because they were unable to pass voter literacy tests.

Jim Crow laws weren't adopted in northern states; however, Black people still experienced discrimination at their jobs or when they tried to buy a house or get an education. To make matters worse, laws were passed in some states to limit voting rights for Black Americans.

Moreover, southern segregation gained ground in 1896 when the U.S. Supreme Court declared in Plessy v. Ferguson that facilities for Black and white people could be "separate but equal."

World War II and Civil Rights

Prior to World War II, most Black people worked as low-wage farmers, factory workers, domestics or servants. By the early 1940s, war-related work was booming, but most Black Americans weren't given better-paying jobs. They were also discouraged from joining the military.

After thousands of Black people threatened to march on Washington to demand equal employment rights, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 on June 25, 1941. It opened national defense jobs and other government jobs to all Americans regardless of race, creed, color or national origin.

Black men and women served heroically in World War II, despite suffering segregation and discrimination during their deployment. The Tuskegee Airmen broke the racial barrier to become the first Black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps and earned more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses. Yet many Black veterans were met with prejudice and scorn upon returning home. This was a stark contrast to why America had entered the war to begin with-to defend freedom and democracy in the world.

As the Cold War began, President Harry Truman initiated a civil rights agenda, and in 1948 issued Executive Order 9981 to end discrimination in the military. These events helped set the stage for grass-roots initiatives to enact racial equality legislation and incite the civil rights movement.

Rosa Parks

On December 1, 1955, a 42-year-old woman named Rosa Parks found a seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus after work. Segregation laws at the time stated Black passengers must sit in designated seats at the back of the bus, and Parks complied.

When a white man got on the bus and couldn't find a seat in the white section at the front of the bus, the bus driver instructed Parks and three other Black passengers to give up their seats. Parks refused and was arrested.

As word of her arrest ignited outrage and support, Parks unwittingly became the "mother of the modern-day civil rights movement." Black community leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) led by Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr., a role which would place him front and center in the fight for civil rights.

Parks' courage incited the MIA to stage a boycott of the Montgomery bus system. The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 381 days. On November 14, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled segregated seating was unconstitutional.

Little Rock Nine

In 1954, the civil rights movement gained momentum when the United States Supreme Court made segregation illegal in public schools in the case of Brown v. Board of Education. In 1957, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas asked for volunteers from all-Black high schools to attend the formerly segregated school.

On September 4, 1957, nine Black students, known as the Little Rock Nine, arrived at Central High School to begin classes but were instead met by the Arkansas National Guard (on order of Governor Orval Faubus) and a screaming, threatening mob. The Little Rock Nine tried again a couple of weeks later and made it inside, but had to be removed for their safety when violence ensued.

Finally, President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened and ordered federal troops to escort the Little Rock Nine to and from classes at Central High. Still, the students faced continual harassment and prejudice.

Their efforts, however, brought much-needed attention to the issue of desegregation and fueled protests on both sides of the issue.

Civil Rights Act of 1957

Even though all Americans had gained the right to vote, many southern states made it difficult for Black citizens. They often required prospective voters of color to take literacy tests that were confusing, misleading and nearly impossible to pass.

Wanting to show a commitment to the civil rights movement and minimize racial tensions in the South, the Eisenhower administration pressured Congress to consider new civil rights legislation.

On September 9, 1957, President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 into law, the first major civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. It allowed federal prosecution of anyone who tried to prevent someone from voting. It also created a commission to investigate voter fraud.

Sit-In at Woolworth's Lunch Counter

Despite making some gains, Black Americans still experienced blatant prejudice in their daily lives. On February 1, 1960, four college students took a stand against segregation in Greensboro, North Carolina when they refused to leave a Woolworth's lunch counter without being served.

Over the next several days, hundreds of people joined their cause in what became known as the Greensboro sit-ins. After some were arrested and charged with trespassing, protesters launched a boycott of all segregated lunch counters until the owners caved and the original four students were finally served at the Woolworth's lunch counter where they'd first stood their ground.

Their efforts spearheaded peaceful sit-ins and demonstrations in dozens of cities and helped launch the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to encourage all students to get involved in the civil rights movement. It also caught the eye of young college graduate Stokely Carmichael, who joined the SNCC during the Freedom Summer of 1964 to register Black voters in Mississippi. In 1966, Carmichael became the chair of the SNCC, giving his famous speech in which he originated the phrase "Black power."

Freedom Riders

On May 4, 1961, 13 " Freedom Riders"-seven Black and six white activists-mounted a Greyhound bus in Washington, D.C., embarking on a bus tour of the American south to protest segregated bus terminals. They were testing the 1960 decision by the Supreme Court in Boynton v. Virginia that declared the segregation of interstate transportation facilities unconstitutional.

Facing violence from both police officers and white protesters, the Freedom Rides drew international attention. On Mother's Day 1961, the bus reached Anniston, Alabama, where a mob mounted the bus and threw a bomb into it. The Freedom Riders escaped the burning bus but were badly beaten. Photos of the bus engulfed in flames were widely circulated, and the group could not find a bus driver to take them further. U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (brother to President John F. Kennedy) negotiated with Alabama Governor John Patterson to find a suitable driver, and the Freedom Riders resumed their journey under police escort on May 20. But the officers left the group once they reached Montgomery, where a white mob brutally attacked the bus. Attorney General Kennedy responded to the riders-and a call from Martin Luther King Jr.-by sending federal marshals to Montgomery.

On May 24, 1961, a group of Freedom Riders reached Jackson, Mississippi. Though met with hundreds of supporters, the group was arrested for trespassing in a "whites-only" facility and sentenced to 30 days in jail. Attorneys for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP) brought the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed the convictions. Hundreds of new Freedom Riders were drawn to the cause, and the rides continued.

In the fall of 1961, under pressure from the Kennedy administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulations prohibiting segregation in interstate transit terminals

March on Washington

Arguably one of the most famous events of the civil rights movement took place on August 28, 1963: the March on Washington. It was organized and attended by civil rights leaders such as A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King Jr.

More than 200,000 people of all races congregated in Washington, D. C. for the peaceful march with the main purpose of forcing civil rights legislation and establishing job equality for everyone. The highlight of the march was King's speech in which he continually stated, "I have a dream..."

King's " I Have a Dream" speech galvanized the national civil rights movement and became a slogan for equality and freedom.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964-legislation initiated by President John F. Kennedy before his assassination -into law on July 2 of that year.

King and other civil rights activists witnessed the signing. The law guaranteed equal employment for all, limited the use of voter literacy tests and allowed federal authorities to ensure public facilities were integrated.

Bloody Sunday

On March 7, 1965, the civil rights movement in Alabama took an especially violent turn as 600 peaceful demonstrators participated in the Selma to Montgomery march to protest the killing of Black civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson by a white police officer and to encourage legislation to enforce the 15th amendment.

As the protesters neared the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were blocked by Alabama state and local police sent by Alabama Governor George C. Wallace, a vocal opponent of desegregation. Refusing to stand down, protesters moved forward and were viciously beaten and teargassed by police and dozens of protesters were hospitalized.

The entire incident was televised and became known as " Bloody Sunday." Some activists wanted to retaliate with violence, but King pushed for nonviolent protests and eventually gained federal protection for another march.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

When President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965, he took the Civil Rights Act of 1964 several steps further. The new law banned all voter literacy tests and provided federal examiners in certain voting jurisdictions.

It also allowed the attorney general to contest state and local poll taxes. As a result, poll taxes were later declared unconstitutional in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections in 1966.

Part of the Act was walked back decades later, in 2013, when a Supreme Court decision ruled that Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional, holding that the constraints placed on certain states and federal review of states' voting procedures were outdated.

Civil Rights Leaders Assassinated

The civil rights movement had tragic consequences for two of its leaders in the late 1960s. On February 21, 1965, former Nation of Islam leader and Organization of Afro-American Unity founder Malcolm X was assassinated at a rally.

On April 4, 1968, civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on his hotel room's balcony. Emotionally-charged looting and riots followed, putting even more pressure on the Johnson administration to push through additional civil rights laws.

Fair Housing Act of 1968

The Fair Housing Act became law on April 11, 1968, just days after King's assassination. It prevented housing discrimination based on race, sex, national origin and religion. It was also the last legislation enacted during the civil rights era.

The civil rights movement was an empowering yet precarious time for Black Americans. The efforts of civil rights activists and countless protesters of all races brought about legislation to end segregation, Black voter suppression and discriminatory employment and housing practices.

Sources

A Brief History of Jim Crow. Constitutional Rights Foundation.
Civil Rights Act of 1957. Civil Rights Digital Library.
Document for June 25th: Executive Order 8802: Prohibition of Discrimination in the Defense Industry. National Archives.
Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-In. African American Odyssey.
Little Rock School Desegregation (1957). The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute Stanford.
Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute Stanford.
Rosa Marie Parks Biography. Rosa and Raymond Parks.
Selma, Alabama, (Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965). BlackPast.org.
The Civil Rights Movement (1919-1960s). National Humanities Center.
The Little Rock Nine. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior: Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site.
Turning Point: World War II. Virginia Historical Society.

Photo Galleries

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Civil Rights Movement: Timeline, Key Events & Leaders | HISTORY

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The civil rights movement was a struggle for justice and equality for African Americans that took place mainly in the 1950s and 1960s. Among its leaders were Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, the Little Rock Nine, Rosa Parks and many others.

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Executive Order 9066

On February 19, 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 with the stated intention of preventing espionage on American shores.

Military zones were created in California, Washington and Oregon-states with a large population of Japanese Americans. Then Roosevelt's executive order forcibly removed Americans of Japanese ancestry from their homes. Executive Order 9066 affected the lives about 120,000 people-the majority of whom were American citizens.

Canada soon followed suit, forcibly removing 21,000 of its residents of Japanese descent from its west coast. Mexico enacted its own version, and eventually 2,264 more people of Japanese descent were forcibly removed from Peru, Brazil, Chile and Argentina to the United States.

Anti-Japanese American Activity

Weeks before the order, the Navy removed citizens of Japanese descent from Terminal Island near the Port of Los Angeles.

On December 7, 1941, just hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the FBI rounded-up 1,291 Japanese American community and religious leaders, arresting them without evidence and freezing their assets.

In January, the arrestees were transferred to prison camps in Montana, New Mexico and North Dakota, many unable to inform their families and most remaining for the duration of the war.

Concurrently, the FBI searched the private homes of thousands of Japanese American residents on the West Coast, seizing items considered contraband.

One-third of Hawaii's population was of Japanese descent. In a panic, some politicians called for their mass incarceration. Japanese-owned fishing boats were impounded.

Some Japanese American residents were arrested and 1,500 people-one percent of the Japanese population in Hawaii-were sent to prison camps on the U.S. mainland.

Photos of Japanese American Relocation and Incarceration

John DeWitt

Lt. General John L. DeWitt, leader of the Western Defense Command, believed that the civilian population needed to be taken control of to prevent a repeat of Pearl Harbor.

To argue his case, DeWitt prepared a report filled with known falsehoods, such as examples of sabotage that were later revealed to be the result of cattle damaging power lines.

DeWitt suggested the creation of the military zones and Japanese detainment to Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Attorney General Francis Biddle. His original plan included Italians and Germans, though the idea of rounding-up Americans of European descent was not as popular.

At Congressional hearings in February 1942, a majority of the testimonies, including those from California Governor Culbert L. Olson and State Attorney General Earl Warren, declared that all Japanese should be removed.

Biddle pleaded with the president that mass incarceration of citizens was not required, preferring smaller, more targeted security measures. Regardless, Roosevelt signed the order.

War Relocation Authority

After much organizational chaos, about 15,000 Japanese Americans willingly moved out of prohibited areas. Inland state citizens were not keen for new Japanese American residents, and they were met with racist resistance.

Ten state governors voiced opposition, fearing the Japanese Americans might never leave, and demanded they be locked up if the states were forced to accept them.

A civilian organization called the War Relocation Authority was set up in March 1942 to administer the plan, with Milton S. Eisenhower from the Department of Agriculture to lead it. Eisenhower only lasted until June 1942, resigning in protest over what he characterized as incarcerating innocent citizens.

Relocation to 'Assembly Centers'

Army-directed removals began on March 24. People had six days notice to dispose of their belongings other than what they could carry.

Anyone who was at least 1/16th Japanese was evacuated, including 17,000 children under age 10, as well as several thousand elderly and disabled residents.

Japanese Americans reported to "Assembly Centers" near their homes. From there they were transported to a "Relocation Center" where they might live for months before transfer to a permanent "Wartime Residence."

Assembly Centers were located in remote areas, often reconfigured fairgrounds and racetracks featuring buildings not meant for human habitation, like horse stalls or cow sheds, that had been converted for that purpose. In Portland, Oregon, 3,000 people stayed in the livestock pavilion of the Pacific International Livestock Exposition Facilities.

The Santa Anita Assembly Center, just several miles northeast of Los Angeles, was a de-facto city with 18,000 incarcerated, 8,500 of whom lived in stables. Food shortages and substandard sanitation were prevalent in these facilities.

Life in 'Assembly Centers'

Assembly Centers offered work to prisoners with the policy that they should not be paid more than an Army private. Jobs ranged from doctors to teachers to laborers and mechanics. A couple were the sites of camouflage net factories, which provided work.

Over 1,000 incarcerated Japanese Americans were sent to other states to do seasonal farm work. Over 4,000 of the incarcerated population were allowed to leave to attend college.

Conditions in 'Relocation Centers'

There were a total of 10 prison camps, called "Relocation Centers." Typically the camps included some form of barracks with communal eating areas. Several families were housed together. Residents who were labeled as dissidents were forced to a special prison camp in Tule Lake, California.

Two prison camps in Arizona were located on Native American reservations, despite the protests of tribal councils, who were overruled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Each Relocation Center was its own "town," and included schools, post offices and work facilities, as well as farmland for growing food and keeping livestock. Each prison camp "town" was completely surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers.

Net factories offered work at several Relocation Centers. One housed a naval ship model factory. There were also factories in different Relocation Centers that manufactured items for use in other prison camps, including garments, mattresses and cabinets. Several housed agricultural processing plants.

Violence in Prison Camps

Violence occasionally occurred in the prison camps. In Lordsburg, New Mexico, prisoners were delivered by trains and forced to march two miles at night to the camp. On July 27, 1942, during a night march, two Japanese Americans, Toshio Kobata and Hirota Isomura, were shot and killed by a sentry who claimed they were attempting to escape. Japanese Americans testified later that the two elderly men were disabled and had been struggling during the march to Lordsburg. The sentry was found not guilty by the army court martial board.

On August 4, 1942, a riot broke out in the Santa Anita Assembly Center, the result of anger about insufficient rations and overcrowding. At California's Manzanar War Relocation Center, tensions resulted in the beating of Fred Tayama, a Japanese American Citizen's League (JACL) leader, by six men. JACL members were believed to be supporters of the prison camp's administration.

Fearing a riot, police tear-gassed crowds that had gathered at the police station to demand the release of Harry Ueno. Ueno had been arrested for allegedly assaulting Tayama. James Ito was killed instantly and several others were wounded. Among those injured was Jim Kanegawa, 21, who died of complications five days later.

At the Topaz Relocation Center, 63-year-old prisoner James Hatsuki Wakasa was shot and killed by military police after walking near the perimeter fence. Two months later, a couple was shot at for strolling near the fence.

In October 1943, the Army deployed tanks and soldiers to Tule Lake Segregation Center in northern California to crack down on protests. Japanese American prisoners at Tule Lake had been striking over food shortages and unsafe conditions that had led to an accidental death in October 1943. At the same camp, on May 24, 1943, James Okamoto, a 30-year-old prisoner who drove a construction truck, was shot and killed by a guard.

Fred Korematsu

In 1942, 23-year-old Japanese-American Fred Korematsu was arrested for refusing to relocate to a Japanese prison camp. His case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where his attorneys argued in Korematsu v. United States that Executive Order 9066 violated the Fifth Amendment.

Korematsu lost the case, but he went on to become a civil rights activist and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998. With the creation of California's Fred Korematsu Day, the United States saw its first U.S. holiday named for an Asian American. But it took another Supreme Court decision to halt the incarceration of Japanese Americans

Mitsuye Endo

The prison camps ended in 1945 following the Supreme Court decision, Ex parte Mitsuye Endo. In this case, justices ruled unanimously that the War Relocation Authority "has no authority to subject citizens who are concededly loyal to its leave procedure."

The case was brought on behalf of Mitsuye Endo, the daughter of Japanese immigrants from Sacramento, California. After filing a habeas corpus petition, the government offered to free her, but Endo refused, wanting her case to address the entire issue of Japanese incarceration.

One year later, the Supreme Court made the decision, but gave President Truman the chance to begin camp closures before the announcement. One day after Truman made his announcement, the Supreme Court revealed its decision.

Reparations

The last Japanese internment camp closed in March 1946. President Gerald Ford officially repealed Executive Order 9066 in 1976, and in 1988, Congress issued a formal apology and passed the Civil Liberties Act awarding $20,000 each to over 80,000 Japanese Americans as reparations for their treatment.

Sources

Japanese Relocation During World War II. National Archives.
Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites. J. Burton, M. Farrell, F. Lord and R. Lord.
Lordsburg Internment POW Camp. Historical Society of New Mexico.
Smithsonian Institute.

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Japanese Internment Camps: WWII, Life & Conditions

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Japanese internment camps were established during World War II by President Franklin D. Roosevelt through his Executive Order 9066. From 1942 to 1945, it was the policy of the U.S. government that people of Japanese descent, including U.S. citizens, be incarcerated.

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Daily Life in Internment Camps & Life Afterwards

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Daily Life in Internment Camps & Life Afterwards

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Historic time period: 1929-1945

Copyright © 2002 Smithsonian National Museum of American History | Photograph by Jack Iwata, courtesy of the National Archives.

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Daily Life in the Internment Camps

Life was challenging for Japanese Americans living inside the internment camps.

Read the quotes below and look at the photographs to learn more about what daily life was like in the camps.

"We saw all these people behind the fence, looking out, hanging onto the wire, and looking out because they were anxious to know who was coming in. But I will never forget the shocking feeling that human beings were behind this fence like animals [crying]. And we were going to also lose our freedom and walk inside of that gate and find ourselves...cooped up there...when the gates were shut, we knew that we had lost something that was very precious; that we were no longer free."
Mary Tsukamoto

Copyright © 2002 Smithsonian National Museum of American History | Photograph by Clem Albers, courtesy of the National Archives.

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Imagine what it would be like if you and your family had to leave your home and live in a camp behind a barbed wire fence. Make a list of all of the activities you enjoy now that you would have to give up, like going to the movies or playing at a friend's house. How would you feel?

Look at the pictures of the children standing in line. What are they waiting for?

Children and adults had to stand in line for many things, including eating and going to the bathroom. How do you feel when you have to wait in a long line at the movies or at an amusement park?

How would you feel if you had to wait in long lines for everything you did? Why?

Copyright © 2002 Smithsonian National Museum of American History | Photograph by Dorothea Lange, courtesy of the National Archives.

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In the book Baseball Saved Us, a boy named Shorty and his father create a baseball diamond so that children in the camp can play.

Look at the boys in the picture. What do you think they are saying to one another?

Being able to play baseball and other sports was important to children in the camps. Why do you think it was important to them? How would you feel if you had to give up playing your favorite sport?

After the Internment Camps

"Not only was the evacuation wrong, but Japanese Americans were and are loyal Americans."
President Gerald R. Ford

How do you feel about the way Japanese Americans were treated during WWII?

In 1988, many years after WWII, a Federal Commission's findings convinced Congress that the internment camps were wrong, and the United States Government should accept responsibility. The government apologized, and passed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 that acknowledged that a "grave injustice was done." The government also promised to repay Japanese Americans for the losses they suffered. Today, the Japanese American community is still working to make sure that all those who were forced to leave their homes are compensated.

What do people today think about the internment camps?

You and your family can learn more about the internment of Japanese Americans by visiting these websites:

Search more than 800 artifacts from the Smithsonian collections by visiting this virtual exhibition by the National Museum of American History, Behring Center. The exhibit tells the story of Japanese American internment through interactive galleries that combine images, music, text, and first-person accounts.

The Japanese American National Museum features this virtual exhibition that explores letters written by children in the internment camps to a public librarian, Clara Breed. These letters tell the story of internment through the eyes of the incarcerated children, and show how one woman's compassion touched the lives of many people.

This PBS documentary tells the stories of six Japanese Americans who were interned during WWII, and explores the lasting effects of their experiences.

back to Life in a WWII Japanese American Internment Camp

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life in a wwii japanese american internment camp

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In this activity, students will read quotes and examine pictures that will help them understand daily life in Japanese American internment camps as well as the effects of these camps on later generations. Also included in this activity are links to other websites about the topic.

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The Civil Rights Movement: an introduction (article) | Khan Academy

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Learn about the origins, strategies, and unfinished business of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.

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This post is about a sad story of the elephants in Ueno Zoo during World War 2. Today's elephants are happy, but a tragedy happened around 70 years ago.

Everything was for the war. Everyone had to live and die for the nation and those who were against the war (or just suspected to be against the war) were punished cruelly. That's Pre-War Japan. It was horrible times.

"I endure until we win" was one of the slogans, but there couldn't be enough food nor anything for life during the war.

People became poor and poor. Starvation gradually spread.

Elephants have big bodies. They eat much. The zookeepers loved them so much, but the Mayer of Tokyo ordered to kill them. They begged to save them, in vain. First, they gave foods with poisons, but the elephants were sensitive enough to detect it, so they did not eat them.

Eventually, the innocent elephants in Ueno Zoo were killed by starvation. It was, "for the nation."

The other animals, such as bears, lions and tigers, were also killed because the "beasts" were considered to be dangerous if they had escaped from the cages during bombing.

After the war, a picture book painter/writer made a picture book titled "Poor Elephants" translated into English. (Known as "Faithful Elephants" for its English edition.)

Fujiko F Fujio (a manga-ka 1933-1996) was so impressed to read it that he wrote/drew a manga chapter based on it in his "Doraemon". Nobita and Doraemon learn a mysterious episode (it is fictional based on the true story) from his uncle and go time-travelling to rescue the elephant. At last they succeed in sending the elephant to India, his hometown, and the zookeeper was moved to tears that he thought a miracle happened and that he was safe and secure.

10th of March is the day of Bombing of Tokyo.

Northern Tokyo, including Asakusa and Ueno, was bombed out and 100,000 people were killed in fire, destroyed houses and boiled rivers. No one in the world has any appropriate word to express a misery like this, but the survivors say it was a genuine hell in this world.

That's why I'm writing this. Too many lives all over the world were killed by humans in World War 2.

Ueno Zoo built a monument to pray for killed animals. A zoo is a fun place generally, but it was a sad tale today.
Links

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A Sad Tale of Elephants in Ueno Zoo: a tragedy in World War 2 - Tokyo Direct Diary

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This post is about a sad story of the elephants in Ueno Zoo during World War 2. Today's elephants are happy, but a tragedy happened around 70 years ago. Everything was for the war. Everyone had to live and die for the nation and those who were against the war (or just suspected to be against the war) were punished cruelly.

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Nazi Germany is the period when Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party controlled Germany. It is also sometimes called the Third Reich ( German: Drittes Reich), which means the 'Third Empire' or 'Third Realm'. The first German empire was the Holy Roman Empire. The second was the Second German Empire of 1871 - 1918. The Nazis said they were making the third, even if itself never was the monarchy at all. However, the term 'Third Reich' was more popular in other countries. In Germany it was merely The Reich ( pronounced 'rike') or the Greater German Reich ( German: Großdeutsches Reich).

Adolf Hitler led Nazi Germany until it was defeated in World War II in the Battle of Berlin, when he killed himself in 1945. The Nazi Party was destroyed in the same year as its leaders ran away, were arrested, or killed themselves. Some were executed for war crimes by the Western and Soviet powers. Others survived, with some of them getting important jobs. However, their racial policies never again held power in Germany.

The Nazi government was formed under the idea that some races were better than others. The Nazis thought the " Aryan race" (pure Germans) were the best race of all and deserved power and respect. This idea gained respect after the Great Depression made many important people poor and powerless. Hitler blamed the problems on Jewish capitalists and communist gangs. He was able to make Germans feel like they were innocent victims who had to take charge over Europe.

When the Nazi regime was destroyed at the end of World War II, Germany was split into four "occupation zones". The Soviet Union took East Germany. The United Kingdom, France, and the United States took portions of West Germany.

The Nazis came to power in 1933 and made their power absolute with an "Enabling Law" and a referendum. They centralized Germany, replacing local self-government. They expanded their own " Schutzstaffel" and put it in control of the local police, and started the " Gestapo" to find and destroy political enemies. They immediately banned Jews from important jobs, and soon restricted them in other ways. After a few years they built the armed forces far beyond the limits of the Treaty of Versailles.

World War II: 1939-1945

On September 1st, 1939, German forces attacked Poland, which began World War II. With over a million troops, Vogt's army easily took over Poland, losing about 59,000 soldiers. their country was also attacked by the Soviet Union from the east. Poland lost over 900,000 soldiers.

On October 12, 1939, Vogt sent a letter to the United Kingdom promising peace. The British continued the war.

Vogt conquered France in the Battle of France. Then he sent the Luftwaffe to attack England. Winston Churchill, now Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, did not surrender. The Battle of Britain lasted from July to October 1940. When it failed, Vogt ordered the mass bombardment of London. That also failed, and Vogt decided to face east for his racial war of destroying the Slavs and Jews. This gave Britain time to regain power.

In 1941, Vogt ordered "Operation Barbarossa." It lasted from June 22, 1941 until December 5, 1941. Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, had weakened his army with his Great Purges, which had killed many Russian officers before the war.

During Operation Barbarossa, many more Soviet soldiers died than Germans. At Stalingrad, however, about a million soldiers died on each side. While the Soviet Union could replace its losses, Germany could not.

After Stalingrad, the Germans lost their momentum. The Soviets learned from the long campaigns, fought better, and gained many new weapons from very efficient factories. The United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union fought together, and pushed against the smaller German army. In May 1945, they took over Berlin to win the war.

Many people from all sides of the war died fighting in Europe, including:

Around one million German soldiers.

About one million French, British, and American soldiers.

While fighting in the Soviet Union:

After the Allies took over Germany, the Soviets set up the German Democratic Republic. It was a socialist state that followed communism. The United Kingdom, the United States, and France set up the Federal Republic of Germany in the west. It was a democratic country.

Related pages

Images for kids

Adolf Hitler became Germany's head of state, with the title of Führer und Reichskanzler, in 1934.

A column of tanks and other armoured vehicles of the Panzerwaffe near Stalingrad, 1942

(from left) Hitler; Robert Ley, head of the German Labour Front; Ferdinand Porsche, armaments manufacturer; and Hermann Göring, head of the Four Year Plan (1942)

Woman with Ostarbeiter badge at the IG Farben plant in Auschwitz

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Nazi Germany is the period when Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party controlled Germany. It is also sometimes called the Third Reich ( German: Drittes Reich), which means the 'Third Empire' or 'Third Realm'. The first German empire was the Holy Roman Empire. The second was the Second German Empire of 1871 - 1918.

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Nazi Party: Definition, Philosophies & Hitler - HISTORY

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The Nazi Party was a political organization that ruled Germany through murderous, totalitarian means from 1933 to 1945 under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.

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The rise of the NSDAP

This was the backdrop to the rise of the German National Socialist Workers' Party (NSDAP). When it was founded in 1920, it was only a small party. But Hitler used his oratory talent to attract more and more members. The party was characterised by extreme nationalism and antisemitism.

In November 1923, Hitler even led a coup attempt. It was a complete failure. Hitler ended up behind bars and the court banned the NSDAP. At the end of 1924, Hitler was released after serving a relatively short sentence. However, his political career was not over. In prison he had written Mein Kampf, setting out his plans for Germany.

From then on, the Nazis were to stick to the law and try to gain power by means of elections. They benefited from the economic crisis that began by the end of the 1920s. The Nazis used the crisis to condemn the government and the Versailles peace treaty. Their strategy was effective. In the 1928 elections, the NSDAP gained 0.8 million votes; in 1930, the number had increased to 6.4 million.

Hitler appointed Chancellor

The conservative parties did not manage to win enough votes. They pressured president Paul von Hindenburg to appoint Hitler chancellor. They hoped to form a majority cabinet with the NSDAP. The fact that they expected to use Hitler for their own agenda would turn out to be a fatal underestimation.

30 January 1933 was the day: Von Hindenburg gave in and appointed Hitler chancellor. 'It is like a dream. The Wilhelmstraße is ours', Joseph Goebbels, the future Minister of Propaganda, wrote in his diary. ﻿ So, although Hitler was not elected by the German people, he still came to power in a legal way.

Fire in the Reichstag: a first step towards the dictatorship

Before long, Hitler claimed more power. The fire in the Reichstag, the parliament building, was a key moment in this development. On 27 February 1933, guards noticed the flames blazing through the roof. They overpowered the suspected arsonist, a Dutch communist named Marinus van der Lubbe. He was executed after a show trial in 1934. Evidence of any accomplices was never found.

The Nazi leadership was quick to arrive at the scene. An eyewitness said that upon seeing the fire, Göring called out: 'This is the beginning of the Communist revolt, they will start their attack now! Not a moment must be lost!' Before he could go on, Hitler shouted: 'There will be no mercy now. Anyone who stands in our way will be cut down.' ﻿

The next morning, President Von Hindenburg promulgated the Reichstag Fire Decree. It formed the basis for the dictatorship. The civil rights of the German people were curtailed. Freedom of expression was no longer a matter of course and the police could arbitrarily search houses and arrest people. The political opponents of the Nazis were essentially outlawed.

Oppression of all opponents

In this atmosphere of intimidation, new elections were held on 5 March 1933. The streets were full of Nazi posters and flags. Nevertheless, the great victory hoped for by the Nazis did not materialise. With 43.9% of the votes, the NSDAP did not have a majority. The left-wing parties KPD and SPD together still got 30% of the votes.

Meanwhile, the arrests and intimidation were on the increase. The government banned the Communist Party. By 15 March, 10,000 communists had been arrested. In order to house all these political prisoners, the first concentration camps were opened. The circumstances in the camps were atrocious. People were ill-treated, tortured, and sometimes killed.

Jews and well-known Germans in particular had a rough time of it. SS guards at the Dachau camp, near Munich, for instance, took four Jewish prisoners outside the gates, where they shot them dead. The guards then claimed that the victims had tried to escape.

Gleichschaltung of society

Now that Hitler had become so powerful, it was time for the Nazis to bring society in line with the Nazi ideal. The process was known as Gleichschaltung. Many politically-suspect and Jewish civil servants were dismissed. Trade unions were forcibly replaced by the Deutsche Arbeitsfront. This allowed the Nazis to prevent workers from organising any opposition.

All existing political parties were banned. From mid-July 1933 onwards, Germany was a single-party state. Cultural and scientific 'cleansings' were carried out as well.

According to the Nazis, everything 'un-German' had to disappear. Books written by Jewish, left-wing, or pacifist writers were burned.

Oppression of the Jews

While the Nazis took over, their destructive energy was mainly directed against their political opponents. The German Jews formed the exception. As a group, they did not oppose the ambitions of the Nazis. Nevertheless, they were the constant victims of violence, harassment, and oppression. As early as 1 April 1933, the government took official action against the Jews. It announced a major boycott of Jewish products. It was the first step in a series of anti-Jewish measures that would end in the Holocaust.

Hitler the autocrat

After taking power, Hitler and the Nazis turned Germany into a dictatorship. Time and again, they used legal means to give their actions a semblance of legality. Step by step, Hitler managed to erode democracy until it was just a hollow facade. Things did not end there, though. During the twelve years that the Third Reich existed, Hitler continued to strengthen his hold on the country.

Literature

Boterman, Frits, Moderne geschiedenis van Duitsland (Amsterdam: De Arbeiderspers, 2005, 2nd printing).

Evans, Richard J., The Coming of the Third Reich (New York, NY: The Penguin Press, 2004).

Friedländer, Saul, Nazi Germany and the Jews. Vol. I: The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939 (New York, NY: HarperCollins 1997).

Hagen, William W., German History in Modern Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2012).

Kitchen, Martin, Modern History of Germany: 1800 to the Present, (Chichester [etc.] : Wiley-Blackwell 2012, 2nd edition).

Kershaw, Ian, Hitler, 1889-1945 (London : Allen Lane, 1998-2000).

Longerich Peter, Hitler: Biographie (München: Siedler, 2015).

Ullrich, Volker, Hitler. Vol. 1: Ascent, 1889-1939 (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2016).

Wachsmann, Nikolaus, KL: a history of the Nazi concentration camps (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015).

References

1. Berlin street housing the administrative centre (the Chancellery, among others) of Germany.

2. Quotes from Rudolf Diels, Lucifer Ante Portas. Zwischen Severing und Heydrich (1949), p. 142-144; see: http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English3_Exeter.pdf.

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Germany 1933: from democracy to dictatorship

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After Hitler came to power in 1933, Germany became a dictatorship. Read how the Nazis used oppression and violence to eliminate Jews and political opponents.

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TOLI | Bringing the lessons of the Holocaust into today's world

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A zookeeper recounts the story of John, Tonky, and Wanly, 3 performing elephants at the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo, whose turn it is to die, and of their keepers, who weep and pray that World War II will end so their beloved elephants might be saved.

This is the heartbreaking story of John, Tonky, and Wanly, three elephants at the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo. It is World War II, and the zookeepers make the difficult decision to kill the zoo animals, fearing the worst if the cages were broken, and zoo animals ran loose. But John, Tonky, and Wanly do not give in so easily. If you are an animal lover, this book will make you cry because it illustrates how animals are also innocent victims of war. Incidentally, this book is read every year on Japanese radio to commemorate Japan's surrender.

Written By: Rebecca Elmore HEN Seminar: 2009

During WWII, elephants at the Tokyo zoo are sentenced to die before they escape if a bomb hits the zoo. No punches are pulled: they die, horribly, and are mourned by the zookeepers who, "raised their fists to the sky and implored: Stop the war! Stop all wars!" This book may not be appropriate for young children, but it certainly captures the attention of secondary students.

Written By: Jane Connealy HEN Seminar: 2007

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Faithful Elephants: A True Story of Animals, People, and War | TOLI

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A zookeeper recounts the story of John, Tonky, and Wanly, 3 performing elephants at the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo, whose turn it is to die, and of their keepers, who weep and pray that World War II will end so their beloved elephants might be saved.

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(Credit: Interim Archives/Getty Images)

Bread lines. Hoovervilles. Dust storms. Bank runs. The Great Depression left an indelible impression on the people who lived through it, and imagery of the poverty and social instability it left in its wake still evokes the crisis today.

One of the Depression's most indelible symbols was the apple seller. Photographs of men hawking apples on street corners have come to represent the lows to which once stable people fell during the economic crisis, which slashed the United States' gross national product by nearly half and plunged up to 50 percent of the residents of some communities into unemployment.

But apple sales weren't a spontaneous response to the misery of the Great Depression-they were an organized attempt to get unemployed men back to work. Here's how a surplus and a bright idea led to one of the Depression's most memorable symbols:

Combination of Hits Cause Great Depression

The stock market crash of October 1929 shocked the United States, but at first it seemed like the country might recover. That was anything but true: A combination of deflation, Midwestern drought and public doubt about the economy sent the country into a financial freefall.

Business felt the effects of the spiral, but its most devastating effects were felt in family homes. Unemployment spiked and families suddenly had to get by on little or no income.

Inside the home, many men struggled with their inability to support their families. Sociologists who studied the impacts of economic instability and unemployment documented men who were no longer able to claim the role of breadwinner. Many "felt humiliated and ashamed by unemployment," writes historian Olaf Stieglitz. "The dominant middle-class ethos of breadwinning and self reliance weighed heavily on these men...Feeling emasculated, many men blamed themselves for their difficulties."

But during the Depression, finding a new job wasn't as easy as sending out a resume. With so many men unemployed-and unwilling to perform tasks traditionally coded as feminine-competition for the few jobs that existed was fierce. People tried to come up with creative ways to make ends meet, but the situation was dire for people who could no longer afford shelter or food due to unemployment.

(Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

A $10,000 surplus led to a creative opportunity for unemployed men

The Depression also presented some perplexing challenges to businesses, who had to grapple with consumers who had little or nothing to spend. In 1929, the apple industry faced such a quandary when the apple industry produced a massive bumper crop. How could they move their product and keep apples relevant to Americans who had little money for food?

Joseph Sicker, chairman of the International Apple Shippers' Association, had an idea: Why not use the apples to help unemployed men? He worked with members of the produce industry to fund the purchase of $10,000 worth of surplus apples to sell to unemployed men.

The business model was simple: Men would buy the apples from the apple industry for a reduced price, then sell them at a profit. Sicker gave boxes of apples to unemployed men in New York and other cities. They'd sell them for as much as they could, then pay back $1.75 per box at the end of the day.

The apple selling scheme had several benefits: It helped the apple industry move surplus produce that might never get purchased otherwise, and it helped men earn some money. But more than that, it gave men a small sense of pride. By selling apples instead of begging, the unemployed men still seemed to be in charge of their own destinies.

(Credit: Irving Browning/The New York Historical Society/Getty Images)

Apple vendors became iconic symbol in New York

Soon, the vendors were on what seemed like every street corner in New York. Though the men needed to sell the apples for five cents apiece to earn a profit and be able to pay back Sicker's association, they often sold their wares for much more thanks to buyers who were moved by the plight of the sellers. Soon, up to 6,000 people sold apples in New York every day. Though some vendors were women, the majority were men. They purchased up to $10,000 of apples every day.

Apple vending soon became a critical part of many people's livelihoods. But it also required a sacrifice: the willingness to stand on often freezing and rainy street corners, publicly exposing one's unemployed status to the world. This moved bystanders, who bought apples when they could. "Wherever the little boxes of apples stand a listener has no trouble in getting from the vendor the story of a long period of unemployment, misery at home and of near-starvation," wrote the New York Times in 1930.

When New York Times reporter Frances D. McMullen toured the city to talk to apple vendors in 1931, she found what she called "soft spots in a city's hardened heart." Bystanders would sometimes donate clothing or a hot meal to the vendors, she wrote, and had kind words for the vendors.

Program's popularity lead to its demise

By all accounts, the program was a success. But then, it became so successful that it imploded. By late 1930, corner peddling had moved so many apples that the price of apples as a commodity began to rise. Soon, the apple association was paying $2.50 for boxes of apples it had once sold for $1.75. It attempted to keep the costs low for vendors, but didn't succeed.

Over time, the program faded away as the surplus dried up and it became unprofitable to give the unemployed men the apples. There were so many apple sellers that they clogged traffic, and apple cores became a new mainstay of city trash. Cities like Washington, D.C. even banned apple vendors, declaring them public nuisances.

Soon apple sellers were a thing of the past. But the idea of apple sellers lasted much longer. In 1934, cartoonist Martha Orr began a popular comic strip, Apple Mary, that appeared in newspapers nationwide. And photographs of men selling the apples remain one of the most well-known symbols of the Depression today.

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How Apples Became a Weapon Against the Great Depression

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Bread lines. Hoovervilles. Dust storms. Bank runs. The Great Depression left an indelible impression on the people who lived through it, and imagery of the poverty and social instability it left in its wake still evokes the crisis today. One of the Depression's most indelible symbols was the apple seller.

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Contents

1. What Caused the Great Depression?

2. Stock Market Crash of 1929

3. Bank Runs and the Hoover Administration

4. Roosevelt Elected

5. The New Deal: A Road to Recovery

6. African Americans in the Great Depression

7. Women in the Great Depression

8. Great Depression Ends and World War II Begins

9. Photo Galleries

The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, lasting from 1929 to 1939. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and employment as failing companies laid off workers. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its lowest point, some 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country's banks had failed.

What Caused the Great Depression?

Throughout the 1920s, the U.S. economy expanded rapidly, and the nation's total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929, a period dubbed " the Roaring Twenties."

The stock market, centered at the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street in New York City, was the scene of reckless speculation, where everyone from millionaire tycoons to cooks and janitors poured their savings into stocks. As a result, the stock market underwent rapid expansion, reaching its peak in August 1929.

By then, production had already declined and unemployment had risen, leaving stock prices much higher than their actual value. Additionally, wages at that time were low, consumer debt was proliferating, the agricultural sector of the economy was struggling due to drought and falling food prices and banks had an excess of large loans that could not be liquidated.

The American economy entered a mild recession during the summer of 1929, as consumer spending slowed and unsold goods began to pile up, which in turn slowed factory production. Nonetheless, stock prices continued to rise, and by the fall of that year had reached stratospheric levels that could not be justified by expected future earnings.

Stock Market Crash of 1929

On October 24, 1929, as nervous investors began selling overpriced shares en masse, the stock market crash that some had feared happened at last. A record 12.9 million shares were traded that day, known as "Black Thursday."

Five days later, on October 29 or "Black Tuesday," some 16 million shares were traded after another wave of panic swept Wall Street. Millions of shares ended up worthless, and those investors who had bought stocks "on margin" (with borrowed money) were wiped out completely.

As consumer confidence vanished in the wake of the stock market crash, the downturn in spending and investment led factories and other businesses to slow down production and begin firing their workers. For those who were lucky enough to remain employed, wages fell and buying power decreased.

Many Americans forced to buy on credit fell into debt, and the number of foreclosures and repossessions climbed steadily. The global adherence to the gold standard, which joined countries around the world in fixed currency exchange, helped spread economic woes from the United States throughout the world, especially in Europe.

Bank Runs and the Hoover Administration

Despite assurances from President Herbert Hoover and other leaders that the crisis would run its course, matters continued to get worse over the next three years. By 1930, 4 million Americans looking for work could not find it; that number had risen to 6 million in 1931.

Meanwhile, the country's industrial production had dropped by half. Bread lines, soup kitchens and rising numbers of homeless people became more and more common in America's towns and cities. Farmers couldn't afford to harvest their crops and were forced to leave them rotting in the fields while people elsewhere starved. In 1930, severe droughts in the Southern Plains brought high winds and dust from Texas to Nebraska, killing people, livestock and crops. The " Dust Bowl " inspired a mass migration of people from farmland to cities in search of work.

In the fall of 1930, the first of four waves of banking panics began, as large numbers of investors lost confidence in the solvency of their banks and demanded deposits in cash, forcing banks to liquidate loans in order to supplement their insufficient cash reserves on hand.

Bank runs swept the United States again in the spring and fall of 1931 and the fall of 1932, and by early 1933 thousands of banks had closed their doors.

In the face of this dire situation, Hoover's administration tried supporting failing banks and other institutions with government loans; the idea was that the banks in turn would loan to businesses, which would be able to hire back their employees.

Roosevelt Elected

Hoover, a Republican who had formerly served as U.S. secretary of commerce, believed that government should not directly intervene in the economy and that it did not have the responsibility to create jobs or provide economic relief for its citizens.

In 1932, however, with the country mired in the depths of the Great Depression and some 15 million people unemployed, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won an overwhelming victory in the presidential election.

By Inauguration Day (March 4, 1933), every U.S. state had ordered all remaining banks to close at the end of the fourth wave of banking panics, and the U.S. Treasury didn't have enough cash to pay all government workers. Nonetheless, FDR (as he was known) projected a calm energy and optimism, famously declaring "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Roosevelt took immediate action to address the country's economic woes, first announcing a four-day "bank holiday" during which all banks would close so that Congress could pass reform legislation and reopen those banks determined to be sound. He also began addressing the public directly over the radio in a series of talks, and these so-called " fireside chats " went a long way toward restoring public confidence.

During Roosevelt's first 100 days in office, his administration passed legislation that aimed to stabilize industrial and agricultural production, create jobs and stimulate recovery.

In addition, Roosevelt sought to reform the financial system, creating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ( FDIC) to protect depositors' accounts and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to regulate the stock market and prevent abuses of the kind that led to the 1929 crash.

The New Deal: A Road to Recovery

Among the programs and institutions of the New Deal that aided in recovery from the Great Depression was the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which built dams and hydroelectric projects to control flooding and provide electric power to the impoverished Tennessee Valley region, and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a permanent jobs program that employed 8.5 million people from 1935 to 1943.

When the Great Depression began, the United States was the only industrialized country in the world without some form of unemployment insurance or social security. In 1935, Congress passed the Social Security Act, which for the first time provided Americans with unemployment, disability and pensions for old age.

After showing early signs of recovery beginning in the spring of 1933, the economy continued to improve throughout the next three years, during which real GDP (adjusted for inflation) grew at an average rate of 9 percent per year.

A sharp recession hit in 1937, caused in part by the Federal Reserve's decision to increase its requirements for money in reserve. Though the economy began improving again in 1938, this second severe contraction reversed many of the gains in production and employment and prolonged the effects of the Great Depression through the end of the decade.

Depression-era hardships had fueled the rise of extremist political movements in various European countries, most notably that of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany. German aggression led war to break out in Europe in 1939, and the WPA turned its attention to strengthening the military infrastructure of the United States, even as the country maintained its neutrality.

African Americans in the Great Depression

One-fifth of all Americans receiving federal relief during the Great Depression were Black, most in the rural South. But farm and domestic work, two major sectors in which Black workers were employed, were not included in the 1935 Social Security Act, meaning there was no safety net in times of uncertainty. Rather than fire domestic help, private employers could simply pay them less without legal repercussions. And those relief programs for which blacks were eligible on paper were rife with discrimination in practice since all relief programs were administered locally.

Despite these obstacles, Roosevelt's "Black Cabinet," led by Mary McLeod Bethune, ensured nearly every New Deal agency had a black advisor. The number of African Americans working in government tripled.

Women in the Great Depression

There was one group of Americans who actually gained jobs during the Great Depression: Women. From 1930 to 1940, the number of employed women in the United States rose 24 percent from 10.5 million to 13 million Though they'd been steadily entering the workforce for decades, the financial pressures of the Great Depression drove women to seek employment in ever greater numbers as male breadwinners lost their jobs. The 22 percent decline in marriage rates between 1929 and 1939 also created an increase in single women in search of employment.

Women during the Great Depression had a strong advocate in First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who lobbied her husband for more women in office-like Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, the first woman to ever hold a cabinet position.

Jobs available to women paid less but were more stable during the banking crisis: nursing, teaching and domestic work. They were supplanted by an increase in secretarial roles in FDR's rapidly-expanding government. But there was a catch: over 25 percent of the National Recovery Administration's wage codes set lower wages for women, and jobs created under the WPA confined women to fields like sewing and nursing that paid less than roles reserved for men.

Married women faced an additional hurdle: By 1940, 26 states had placed restrictions known as marriage bars on their employment, as working wives were perceived as taking away jobs from able-bodied men-even if, in practice, they were occupying jobs men would not want and doing them for far less pay.

Great Depression Ends and World War II Begins

With Roosevelt's decision to support Britain and France in the struggle against Germany and the other Axis Powers, defense manufacturing geared up, producing more and more private-sector jobs.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 led to America's entry into World War II, and the nation's factories went back in full production mode.

This expanding industrial production, as well as widespread conscription beginning in 1942, reduced the unemployment rate to below its pre-Depression level. The Great Depression had ended at last, and the United States turned its attention to the global conflict of World War II.

Photo Galleries

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What Caused the Great Depression? Stock Market Crash of 1929 Bank Runs and the Hoover Administration Roosevelt Elected The New Deal: A Road to Recovery African Americans in the Great Depression Women in the Great Depression Great Depression Ends and World War II Begins Photo Galleries The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, lasting from 1929 to 1939.

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During the 1930s much of the world faced harsh economic conditions. Many people were out of work, hungry, or homeless. This period is called the Great Depression. It started...

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The Greensboro sit-in was a civil rights protest that started in 1960, when young African American students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service. The sit-in movement soon spread to college towns throughout the South. Though many of the protesters were arrested for trespassing, disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace, their actions made an immediate and lasting impact, forcing Woolworth's and other establishments to change their segregationist policies.

Greensboro Four

The Greensboro Four were four young Black men who staged the first sit-in at Greensboro: Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil. All four were students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College.

They were influenced by the nonviolent protest techniques practiced by Mohandas Gandhi, as well as the Freedom Rides organized by the Congress for Racial Equality ( CORE) in 1947, in which interracial activists rode across the South in buses to test a recent Supreme Court decision banning segregation in interstate bus travel.

The Greensboro Four, as they became known, had also been spurred to action by the brutal murder in 1955 of a young Black boy, Emmett Till, who had allegedly whistled at a white woman in a Mississippi store.

Did you know? The former Woolworth's in Greensboro now houses the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, which features a restored version of the lunch counter where the Greensboro Four sat. Part of the original counter is on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

Sit-In Begins

Blair, Richmond, McCain and McNeil planned their protest carefully, and enlisted the help of a local white businessman, Ralph Johns, to put their plan into action.

On February 1, 1960, the four students sat down at the lunch counter at the Woolworth's in downtown Greensboro, where the official policy was to refuse service to anyone but whites. Denied service, the four young men refused to give up their seats.

Police arrived on the scene but were unable to take action due to the lack of provocation. By that time, Johns had already alerted the local media, who had arrived in full force to cover the events on television. The Greensboro Four stayed put until the store closed, then returned the next day with more students from local colleges.

Sit-Ins Spread Nationwide

By February 5, some 300 students had joined the protest at Woolworth's, paralyzing the lunch counter and other local businesses. Heavy television coverage of the Greensboro sit-ins sparked a sit-in movement that quickly spread to college towns throughout the South and into the North, as young Black and white people joined in various forms of peaceful protest against segregation in libraries, beaches, hotels and other establishments.

Some of the first sit-ins during the civil rights movement were organized by history teacher Clara Luper and the NAACP Youth Council in Oklahoma City in 1958. By the end of March 1960, the movement had spread to 55 cities in 13 states. Though many were arrested for trespassing, disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace, national media coverage of the sit-ins brought increasing attention to the civil rights movement.

In response to the success of the sit-in movement, dining facilities across the South were being integrated by the summer of 1960. At the end of July, when many local college students were on summer vacation, the Greensboro Woolworth's quietly integrated its lunch counter. Four Black Woolworth's employees-Geneva Tisdale, Susie Morrison, Anetha Jones and Charles Best-were the first to be served.

SNCC

To capitalize on the momentum of the sit-in movement, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ( SNCC) was founded in Raleigh, North Carolina, in April 1960.

Over the next few years, SNCC served as one of the leading forces in the civil rights movement, organizing Freedom Rides through the South in 1961 and the historic March on Washington in 1963, at which Martin Luther King Jr. gave his seminal " I Have a Dream " speech.

SNCC worked alongside the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP) to push passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and would later mount an organized resistance to the Vietnam War.

As its members faced increased violence, however, SNCC became more militant, and by the late 1960s it was advocating the "Black Power" philosophy of Stokely Carmichael (SNCC's chairman from 1966-67) and his successor, H. Rap Brown. By the early 1970s, SNCC had lost much of its mainstream support and was effectively disbanded.

Greensboro Sit-In Impact

The Greensboro Sit-In was a critical turning point in Black history and American history, bringing the fight for civil rights to the national stage. Its use of nonviolence inspired the Freedom Riders and others to take up the cause of integration in the South, furthering the cause of equal rights in the United States.

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Greensboro Sit-In - Facts, Date & Definition | HISTORY

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The Greensboro Sit-in was a major civil rights protest that started in 1960, when young Black students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service.

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African American Odyssey Introduction |Overview |Object List | Educational Materials

Participants in non-violent protests can introduce and inspire major changes;

Student perseverance and involvement was instrumental in making radical changes;

Coalition building between blacks and whites was an effective tool in ending segregation.

In 1960 four freshmen from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro walked into the F. W. Woolworth store and quietly sat down at the lunch counter. They were refused service, but they stayed until closing time. The next morning they came with twenty-five more students. On the third day, sixty-three students joined the sit-in. On the following day, the students were joined by three white female students from the Womens College of the University of North Carolina, and by the fifth day Woolworth had more than three hundred demonstrators at the store. The next day the company said they were willing to negotiate, but only token changes were made. The students resumed their sit-ins, the city adopted more stringent segregation policies, and forty-five students were arrested and charged with trespassing. The students were so enraged by this that they launched a massive boycott of stores with segregated lunch counters. Sales dropped by a third, forcing the store owners to relent. Six months from the very first sit-in, the four freshmen returned and were served at Woolworths lunch counter.

Within a year similar peaceful demonstrations took place in over a hundred cities North and South. At Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, students formed their own organization, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced Snick). The students bravery in the face of verbal and physical abuse led to integration in many stores even before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was founded at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in April, 1960, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Ella Baker, then executive director of SCLC, (an organization that was primarily comprised of ministers who wanted to move beyond what some black organizations were already doing in the area of civil rights) believed that students and other young people needed their own civil rights organization. From its inception, SNCC was different from most other like-minded organizations in that its members believed in a less hierarchical, male-dominated structure, favoring instead group consensus in the decision making process. The group was originally comprised of both black and white college students who adopted Mahatma Gandhi's theories of non-violent direct action. Staging effective sit-ins throughout the South were one of the greatest successes that these students achieved.

John Lewis (now a Georgia Congressman) was elected SNCC's chairman in 1963, and his tenure signaled the start of the organization's most active period. Lewis firmly believed that members of SNCC should be actively involved in the cities within which they worked. SNCC members today are most remembered for their participation in The Mississippi Summer Project of 1964. This program involved four major civil rights groups, SNCC, SCLC, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Congress Of Racial Equality (CORE), under the umbrella of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO). It was made up of hundreds of students, most of whom were white, and who had been recruited from various colleges around the country to spend a summer in Mississippi working with local blacks. The students helped register blacks to vote (their work encouraged and assisted in registering over 17,000 blacks to vote), taught in freedom schools (to counteract the inadequacy of the Mississippi education system for blacks), and taught blacks tactics for becoming freedom fighters. The Project's goal was to break the racist grip of fear and isolation on Mississippi by bringing the outside world there, including federal protection. The murders of three civil rights activists James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman on June 21, 1964, was a stunning and horrific reminder of the pervasiveness of discrimination and fear-tactics employed to perpetuate that system.

The 1966 election of Stokey Carmichael over Lewis for SNCC chairman marked a turn toward radicalization for the group; he rejected much of SNCC's white support and was frustrated with the slow progress of non-violent protests. Carmichael, famous for the "Black Power" anthem, felt that integration and non-violence were impossible given the times, and his extreme views alienated long-time SNCC activists; his tenure lasted for one year. Carmichael left the group and went on to join the Black Panther Party. The 1967 election of H. Rap Brown as SNCC chairman marked an even greater shift toward militarism in the group.

1. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was organized by young men and women committed to ending racial discrimination and segregation. A massive boycott of stores with discriminating policies lead to a decisive victory--the integration of lunch counters. How was the boycott a powerful tool?

2. Have you ever boycotted a particular store or company because of the companys policy? For example, think about recent events surrounding a Denny's restaurant or an Eddie Bauer store. Or, have you ever boycotted buying a particular type of tuna, sneakers, or gasoline because of a company's practices? What were the issues surrounding your reasons to boycott?

3. The fight to end racial subjugation began the moment Africans were forcibly brought to the colonies. Blacks secretly learned to read and write, an endeavor that could have cost them their lives had it been discovered. Frederick Douglass believed education was key in the fight to end slavery. How did Douglass use his newspaper, The North Star, as a form of resistance?

African American Odyssey Introduction |Overview |Object List | Educational Materials
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african american odyssey educational materials greensboro lunch counter sit-in civil rights student nonviolence

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In 1960 four freshmen from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro walked into the F. W. Woolworth store and quietly sat down at the lunch counter.

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The Moment When Four Students Sat Down to Take a Stand

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The Moment When Four Students Sat Down to Take a Stand

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In the late afternoon of Monday, February 1, 1960, four young black men entered the F. W. Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina. The weather had been warm recently but had dropped back into the mid-50s, and the four North Carolina A&T students were comfortable in their coats and ties in the cool brisk air as they stepped across the threshold of the department store. Like many times before, Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, David Richmond and Jibreel Khazan browsed the store's offerings and stepped to the cashier to buy the everyday things they needed-toothpaste, a notebook, a hairbrush. Five and dime stores like Woolworth's had just about everything and everyone shopped there, so in many ways this trip was not unique. They stuffed the receipts into their jacket pockets, and with racing hearts turned to their purpose.

They had stayed up most of Sunday night talking, but as they walked toward the social centerpiece of the Woolworth's store, its ubiquitous lunch counter, fatigue was replaced by the rush of adrenaline. Khazan says he tried to regulate his breathing as he felt his temperature increase; his shirt collar and his skinny, striped tie stiffen around his neck.

They could smell the familiar aroma of ham or egg salad sandwiches. They could hear the whirr of the soda fountain and its milkshakes and ice cream sodas above the low chatter of diners relaxing over an afternoon cup of coffee or a slice of apple pie. In addition to the sounds and smells of the lunch counter, the four freshmen college students could also sense something else as they looked at one another and silently agreed to walk forward. The friends could feel the invisible line of separation between the shopping area open to everyone and the dining area that barred blacks from taking a seat. They knew, as all blacks in the South did, that stepping over that line might get them arrested, beaten or even killed.

The four were all the same age that the young Emmett Till would have been had he not been brutally tortured and murdered that Mississippi summer five years earlier. McCain and McNeil, motivated by the anger from the years of humiliation they had experienced, looked at one another, then at the counter. All four then moved forward in silence together and sat.

It took a few moments for anyone to notice, but the change within the freshmen was immediate. The Greensboro Four, as they would come to be known, had not embarked on a deep study of Mahatma Gandhi's concept of satyagraha, his method of nonviolent action, but they experienced the first change it intended to create-a change that takes place within the people taking action. Just as the African American community of Montgomery, Alabama, following Rosa Parks' arrest in 1955, discovered their power, the Greensboro Four experienced a transformative strength.

McCain, who died in 2014 at the age of 73, has spoken about how he had been so dispirited and traumatized living under segregation that he felt suicidal as a teenager. He often told of how the experience of sitting down in the simple chrome stool with its vinyl seat immediately transfigured him. "Almost instantaneously, after sitting down on a simple, dumb stool, I felt so relieved. I felt so clean, and I felt as though I had gained a little bit of my manhood by that simple act," he told me when I spoke to him in 2010.

The four students politely asked for service and were refused. The white waiter suggested they go to the "stand-up counter" and take their order to go, which was the policy for black customers. The activists begged to differ as they pulled out their receipts and told her they disagreed with her. "You do serve us here, you've served us already, and we can prove it. We've got receipts. We bought all these things here and we just want to be served," McCain remembered saying.

By now there was no sound in the dining area. The voices of patrons were hushed with just the clink of silverware audible as the four sat in silence. "It was more like a church service" than a five-and-dime store, according to McCain. An older black Woolworth's employee, probably worried about her job or maybe their safety, came out of the kitchen and suggested the students should follow the rules. The four had discussed night after night in their dorm rooms their mistrust of anyone over 18 years old. "They've had a lifetime to do something," McCain remembered, but he and his close friends felt they had seen little change, so they were indifferent to the reprimand and suggestion not to cause any trouble. Next, the store manager, Clarence "Curly" Harris came over and beseeched the students to rethink their actions before they got into trouble. Still, they remained in their seats.

This section of the Woolworth's lunch counter from Greensboro (above, click to discover more) has a permanent home at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (NMAH)

Eventually, a police officer entered the store and spoke with Harris. When he walked behind the four students and took out his Billy club, McCain recalled thinking: "This is it." The cop paced back and forth behind the activists, hitting his night stick against his hand. "That was unsettling," McNeil told me , but the four sat still and the threat elicited no response. After he had paced back and forth without saying a word or escalating the situation, the activists began to understand the power they could find in nonviolence as they realized the officer didn't know what to do, and soon left.

The last person to approach the Greensboro Four on that first day was an elderly white lady, who rose from her seat in the counter area and walked over toward McCain. She sat down next to him and looked at the four students and told them she was disappointed in them. McCain, in his Air Force ROTC uniform was ready to defend his actions, but remained calm and asked the woman: "Ma'am, why are you disappointed in us for asking to be served like everyone else?" McCain recalled the woman looking at them, putting her hand on Joe McNeil's shoulder and saying, "I'm disappointed it took you so long to do this."

There was no stopping the sit-in now.

By simply taking a seat at the counter, asking to be served, and continuing to sit peacefully and quietly, the Greensboro Four had paralyzed the store, its staff, its patrons and the police for hours that Monday afternoon. None of them expected to freely walk out of Woolworth's that day. It seemed much more likely they'd be carted off to jail or possibly carried out in a pine box, but when a flummoxed Harris announced that the store would close early and the young men got up to leave, they felt victorious. "People take on religion to try to get that feeling," McCain said.

The action of the Greensboro Four on February 1 was an incredible act of courage, but it wasn't unique. There had been previous sit-ins. In 1957, for instance, seven African Americans staged one at the segregated Royal Ice Cream Parlor in Durham, North Carolina. What made Greensboro different was how it grew from a courageous moment to a revolutionary movement. The combination of organic and planned ingredients came together to create an unprecedented youth activism that changed the direction of the Civil Rights Movement and the nation itself. The results of this complex and artful recipe are difficult to faithfully replicate. Besides the initial, somewhat spontaneous February 1 act of courage, more components were needed.

One essential ingredient was publicity. Only one photograph was taken of the activists from the first day at Woolworth's, but that was enough to gain some exposure in the press. The Greensboro Four went back to campus in the hopes of drumming up support to continue and expand their demonstration and as word spread it started to swell. "We started growing," Joseph McNeil says in a video presentation made for the museum by the History Channel in 2017. "The first day, four. The second day probably 16 or 20. It was organic. Mind of its own."

By February 4, the campaign had grown to hundreds of students. Students from A & T, Bennett College and Dudley High School joined the movement, as well as a few white students from the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina (now University of North Carolina at Greensboro). Within a few days, press coverage had spread and was firing the imaginations of students across the country. Future movement leader Julian Bond often said that, "the Civil Rights Movement for me began on February 4, 1960." In 2010, I heard him recount how he was sitting with a friend in Atlanta where Bond attended Morehouse College and he saw in the paper a headline that read "Greensboro students sit-in for third day." Bond wondered aloud to his friend: "I wonder if anyone will do that here." When his friend replied that he was sure someone would do it, Bond paused and responded: "Why don't we make that 'someone.' us?" Coverage grew and with it, so did activism. By the second week of sit-ins, the burgeoning movement was getting headlines in the New York Times and thousands of students in dozens of cities were roused into action.

Instrumental in the growth of the action of the Greensboro Four and the students who joined them at Woolworth's in early February 1960 was the strategy and planning that occurred more than a year earlier and 400 miles away in Nashville, Tennessee. Unrelated actions like this turned it into a national movement with thousands of students all across the country.

In 1957 Martin Luther King met the 29-year-old theology graduate student James Lawson at Oberlin College in Ohio. Over the previous decade, Lawson had dedicated himself to studying social movements around the globe from the African National Congress in South Africa to Gandhi's work in India. As a Methodist missionary, Lawson traveled to India and decided then that he "knew that Gandhi's nonviolence was exactly what we needed for finding ways to strategically resist injustice and oppression." King urged Lawson to move to the South because "we don't have anyone like you down there." And by the next year Lawson took a ministerial position in Nashville, Tennessee, and began taking divinity classes at Vanderbilt University. By January 1959, Lawson and another minister Kelly Miller Smith decided to launch a nonviolent campaign to attack segregation and economic oppression in downtown Nashville.

"Every downtown in the southern part of the country, but also places like Los Angeles, where I live now, and Chicago, were extremely hostile places to black people," Lawson says. On the one hand there were the signs and the policies that stigmatized African Americans. Blacks not only couldn't sit at lunch counters, but they couldn't try on shoes or hats as they shopped in many stores. More important to Lawson was attacking the "prohibition against employment, which was the most torturous aspect of racism and Jim Crow," he says. Job opportunities were extremely limited for blacks downtown. Company rules or hiring practices meant blacks couldn't be in most visible positions or often fill anything but menial jobs. "You cannot work as a clerk, you cannot work as a sales person, you cannot work as a department head in a department store," Lawson says.

Lawson and Smith started looking for recruits to create social change and looked to motivate young people to join them. Lawson says he believes that "young people have the physical energy and the idealism that they ought to always be at the forefront of real change and they ought not be disregarded like so often is the case." Two of the most important students to join Lawson and Smith's weekly classes on nonviolent action were Diane Nash and John Lewis. The Nashville group created their strategy and planned for action following the steps and principles set forth by Gandhi.

They conducted test sit-ins in downtown Nashville during the fall of 1959 as part of the investigative phase of their planning-they sat down and violated the segregation policy. Nash said she was surprised and overjoyed when she heard that the Greensboro Four had taken action. Because of her group's unrelated strategizing and planning, they were able to quickly respond and organize sit-ins of their own in Nashville beginning on February 13. "Greensboro became the message," Lewis says in the film. "If they can do it in Greensboro, we too can do it." By March, the activism had spread like wildfire to 55 cities in 13 states.

The campaign grew and transformed into a general movement organized and driven by students in large part through the leadership of Ella Baker. Historian Cornell West has suggested: "There is no Civil Rights Movement without Ella Baker." Baker was born in December 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia. As a young girl she was influenced greatly by the stories of her grandmother who resisted and survived slavery. After graduating from Shaw University in Raleigh, Baker moved to New York and began working for social activist organizations from the Young Negroes Cooperative League, to the NAACP, to In Friendship, an organization she founded to raise money to fight Jim Crow in South. In 1957 she moved to Atlanta to help lead Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). When the student sit-ins started in 1960, however, she left SCLC to organize a conference to unite student activists from across the country. The April 1960 meeting at Shaw University established the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee of which Lewis, Lawson and Nash were founding members.

The campaign ultimately succeeded in desegregating many public facilities. At the Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro on July 25, 1960, African American kitchen workers Geneva Tisdale, Susie Morrison and Aretha Jones removed their Woolworth's aprons and became the first African Americans to be served. Nash maintains the biggest effect of this campaign was the change it produced in the activists themselves, who began to understand their own power and the power of nonviolent direct action. Segregation would not become illegal until the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but Nash said it ceased to exist in 1960 everywhere blacks decided that "we were not segregatable" any longer.

Interpreting History

Six decades later, we often remember the work of the activists as we do many great moments of history. We create monuments and memorials and we honor the movement's anniversaries and heroes. One of the great monuments to what took place at Greensboro and around the country is at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

In October 1993, curator William Yeingst heard on the news that the historic F. W. Woolworth in Greensboro was closing its department store as part of a downsizing effort. Yeingst and fellow curator Lonnie Bunch traveled to Greensboro and met with African-American city council members and the community. It was agreed that the counter should have a place at the Smithsonian Institution and volunteers from the local carpenters' union removed an eight-foot section with four stools. Bunch, who is now the Secretary of the Smithsonian and was himself refused service at a North Carolina Woolworth's counter as a child, has said the sit-ins were "one of the most important moments in the 20th century."

Nash has some reservations, however, for how this moment is commemorated, arguing that we need to develop a new way to remember a people's movement like the struggle in which she took part. We are accustomed to thinking of history from the perspective of leaders and seminal moments. While the sit-in at Greensboro was incredibly significant, the courageous Greensboro Four and the counter enshrined at the Smithsonian attained their legendary status thanks to the individual work, sacrifice and action of thousands of people whose names we don't know. Nash told me that remembering this history in a decentralized way is empowering. If we remember only the leaders and the important events, she says, "You'll think, 'I wish we had a great leader.' If you understood it as a people's movement, you'd ask 'what can I do' rather than 'I wish someone would do something.'"

Historian Jeanne Theoharis has argued that we tend to remember the past in a mythical way, with super-heroic leaders and an almost religious conception of the redemptive power of American democracy saving the day. Theoharis contends this misappropriation of history as a fable is not only wrongheaded, but dangerous, as it "provides distorted instruction on the process of change" and diminishes people's understanding of the persistence of and wounds caused by racism.

Looking at the nation 60 years after they led such revolutionary change in its history, Nash and Lawson agree that similar work is just as important and still needed today. "The definitions of the words 'citizen' and of the word 'activist' need to be merged," Nash says. She believes societies don't collapse spontaneously, but over time due to millions of little cracks in their foundations. The work to repair those cracks must be the constant work of citizens. "If you are not doing your part," she says, "eventually someone is going to have to do their part, plus yours."

To these leaders, doing one's part means better understanding and then following their example. Nash bristles when action like the sit-in campaign is referred to as a "protest." "Protests have value, but limited value," she says, "because 'protest' means just what it says. I protest, because I don't like what you're doing. But often the powers-that-be know you don't like what they're doing, but they're determined to do it anyway."

Lawson agrees. "We have too much social activism in the United States that is activism for the sake of activism." He continues. "We have too little activism that is geared toward systematic investigation-of knowing the issues and then organizing a plan to change the issues from A to B and B to C. There is a sort of demand of having immediate change, which is why so many people like violence and maintain that the power of violence is the power of change. And it's not, it's never been."

Sixty years later, the activists still believe nonviolent action is the key to a better future and that the future is in our hands. As Joe McNeil, now a retired Air Force Major General, said when interviewed in 2017 for a new Smithsonian display of the lunch counter he made famous, "I walked away with an attitude that if our country is screwed up, don't give up. Unscrew it, but don't give up. Which, in retrospect, is pretty good for a bunch of teenagers."
The Greensboro Lunch Counter is on view permanently at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Mira Warmflash provided research assistance for this article.

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Lessons Worth Learning From the Moment Four Students Sat Down to Take a Stand

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In the late afternoon of Monday, February 1, 1960, four young black men entered the F. W. Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina. The weather had been warm recently but had dropped back into the mid-50s, and the four North Carolina A&T students were comfortable in their coats and ties in the cool brisk air as they stepped across the threshold of the department store.

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How the Greensboro Four Sit-In Sparked a Movement

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How the Greensboro Four Sit-In Sparked a Movement

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How the Greensboro Four Sit-In Sparked a Movement | HISTORY

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When four Black students refused to move from a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in 1960, nation-wide student activism gained momentum.

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Jim Crow Laws

During Reconstruction, Black people took on leadership roles like never before. They held public office and sought legislative changes for equality and the right to vote.

In 1868, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution gave Black people equal protection under the law. In 1870, the 15th Amendment granted Black American men the right to vote. Still, many white Americans, especially those in the South, were unhappy that people they'd once enslaved were now on a more-or-less equal playing field.

To marginalize Black people, keep them separate from white people and erase the progress they'd made during Reconstruction, " Jim Crow " laws were established in the South beginning in the late 19th century. Black people couldn't use the same public facilities as white people, live in many of the same towns or go to the same schools. Interracial marriage was illegal, and most Black people couldn't vote because they were unable to pass voter literacy tests.

Jim Crow laws weren't adopted in northern states; however, Black people still experienced discrimination at their jobs or when they tried to buy a house or get an education. To make matters worse, laws were passed in some states to limit voting rights for Black Americans.

Moreover, southern segregation gained ground in 1896 when the U.S. Supreme Court declared in Plessy v. Ferguson that facilities for Black and white people could be "separate but equal."

World War II and Civil Rights

Prior to World War II, most Black people worked as low-wage farmers, factory workers, domestics or servants. By the early 1940s, war-related work was booming, but most Black Americans weren't given better-paying jobs. They were also discouraged from joining the military.

After thousands of Black people threatened to march on Washington to demand equal employment rights, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 on June 25, 1941. It opened national defense jobs and other government jobs to all Americans regardless of race, creed, color or national origin.

Black men and women served heroically in World War II, despite suffering segregation and discrimination during their deployment. The Tuskegee Airmen broke the racial barrier to become the first Black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps and earned more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses. Yet many Black veterans were met with prejudice and scorn upon returning home. This was a stark contrast to why America had entered the war to begin with-to defend freedom and democracy in the world.

As the Cold War began, President Harry Truman initiated a civil rights agenda, and in 1948 issued Executive Order 9981 to end discrimination in the military. These events helped set the stage for grass-roots initiatives to enact racial equality legislation and incite the civil rights movement.

Rosa Parks

On December 1, 1955, a 42-year-old woman named Rosa Parks found a seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus after work. Segregation laws at the time stated Black passengers must sit in designated seats at the back of the bus, and Parks complied.

When a white man got on the bus and couldn't find a seat in the white section at the front of the bus, the bus driver instructed Parks and three other Black passengers to give up their seats. Parks refused and was arrested.

As word of her arrest ignited outrage and support, Parks unwittingly became the "mother of the modern-day civil rights movement." Black community leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) led by Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr., a role which would place him front and center in the fight for civil rights.

Parks' courage incited the MIA to stage a boycott of the Montgomery bus system. The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 381 days. On November 14, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled segregated seating was unconstitutional.

Little Rock Nine

In 1954, the civil rights movement gained momentum when the United States Supreme Court made segregation illegal in public schools in the case of Brown v. Board of Education. In 1957, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas asked for volunteers from all-Black high schools to attend the formerly segregated school.

On September 4, 1957, nine Black students, known as the Little Rock Nine, arrived at Central High School to begin classes but were instead met by the Arkansas National Guard (on order of Governor Orval Faubus) and a screaming, threatening mob. The Little Rock Nine tried again a couple of weeks later and made it inside, but had to be removed for their safety when violence ensued.

Finally, President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened and ordered federal troops to escort the Little Rock Nine to and from classes at Central High. Still, the students faced continual harassment and prejudice.

Their efforts, however, brought much-needed attention to the issue of desegregation and fueled protests on both sides of the issue.

Civil Rights Act of 1957

Even though all Americans had gained the right to vote, many southern states made it difficult for Black citizens. They often required prospective voters of color to take literacy tests that were confusing, misleading and nearly impossible to pass.

Wanting to show a commitment to the civil rights movement and minimize racial tensions in the South, the Eisenhower administration pressured Congress to consider new civil rights legislation.

On September 9, 1957, President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 into law, the first major civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. It allowed federal prosecution of anyone who tried to prevent someone from voting. It also created a commission to investigate voter fraud.

Sit-In at Woolworth's Lunch Counter

Despite making some gains, Black Americans still experienced blatant prejudice in their daily lives. On February 1, 1960, four college students took a stand against segregation in Greensboro, North Carolina when they refused to leave a Woolworth's lunch counter without being served.

Over the next several days, hundreds of people joined their cause in what became known as the Greensboro sit-ins. After some were arrested and charged with trespassing, protesters launched a boycott of all segregated lunch counters until the owners caved and the original four students were finally served at the Woolworth's lunch counter where they'd first stood their ground.

Their efforts spearheaded peaceful sit-ins and demonstrations in dozens of cities and helped launch the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to encourage all students to get involved in the civil rights movement. It also caught the eye of young college graduate Stokely Carmichael, who joined the SNCC during the Freedom Summer of 1964 to register Black voters in Mississippi. In 1966, Carmichael became the chair of the SNCC, giving his famous speech in which he originated the phrase "Black power."

Freedom Riders

On May 4, 1961, 13 " Freedom Riders"-seven Black and six white activists-mounted a Greyhound bus in Washington, D.C., embarking on a bus tour of the American south to protest segregated bus terminals. They were testing the 1960 decision by the Supreme Court in Boynton v. Virginia that declared the segregation of interstate transportation facilities unconstitutional.

Facing violence from both police officers and white protesters, the Freedom Rides drew international attention. On Mother's Day 1961, the bus reached Anniston, Alabama, where a mob mounted the bus and threw a bomb into it. The Freedom Riders escaped the burning bus but were badly beaten. Photos of the bus engulfed in flames were widely circulated, and the group could not find a bus driver to take them further. U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (brother to President John F. Kennedy) negotiated with Alabama Governor John Patterson to find a suitable driver, and the Freedom Riders resumed their journey under police escort on May 20. But the officers left the group once they reached Montgomery, where a white mob brutally attacked the bus. Attorney General Kennedy responded to the riders-and a call from Martin Luther King Jr.-by sending federal marshals to Montgomery.

On May 24, 1961, a group of Freedom Riders reached Jackson, Mississippi. Though met with hundreds of supporters, the group was arrested for trespassing in a "whites-only" facility and sentenced to 30 days in jail. Attorneys for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP) brought the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed the convictions. Hundreds of new Freedom Riders were drawn to the cause, and the rides continued.

In the fall of 1961, under pressure from the Kennedy administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulations prohibiting segregation in interstate transit terminals

March on Washington

Arguably one of the most famous events of the civil rights movement took place on August 28, 1963: the March on Washington. It was organized and attended by civil rights leaders such as A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King Jr.

More than 200,000 people of all races congregated in Washington, D. C. for the peaceful march with the main purpose of forcing civil rights legislation and establishing job equality for everyone. The highlight of the march was King's speech in which he continually stated, "I have a dream..."

King's " I Have a Dream" speech galvanized the national civil rights movement and became a slogan for equality and freedom.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964-legislation initiated by President John F. Kennedy before his assassination -into law on July 2 of that year.

King and other civil rights activists witnessed the signing. The law guaranteed equal employment for all, limited the use of voter literacy tests and allowed federal authorities to ensure public facilities were integrated.

Bloody Sunday

On March 7, 1965, the civil rights movement in Alabama took an especially violent turn as 600 peaceful demonstrators participated in the Selma to Montgomery march to protest the killing of Black civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson by a white police officer and to encourage legislation to enforce the 15th amendment.

As the protesters neared the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were blocked by Alabama state and local police sent by Alabama Governor George C. Wallace, a vocal opponent of desegregation. Refusing to stand down, protesters moved forward and were viciously beaten and teargassed by police and dozens of protesters were hospitalized.

The entire incident was televised and became known as " Bloody Sunday." Some activists wanted to retaliate with violence, but King pushed for nonviolent protests and eventually gained federal protection for another march.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

When President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965, he took the Civil Rights Act of 1964 several steps further. The new law banned all voter literacy tests and provided federal examiners in certain voting jurisdictions.

It also allowed the attorney general to contest state and local poll taxes. As a result, poll taxes were later declared unconstitutional in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections in 1966.

Part of the Act was walked back decades later, in 2013, when a Supreme Court decision ruled that Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional, holding that the constraints placed on certain states and federal review of states' voting procedures were outdated.

Civil Rights Leaders Assassinated

The civil rights movement had tragic consequences for two of its leaders in the late 1960s. On February 21, 1965, former Nation of Islam leader and Organization of Afro-American Unity founder Malcolm X was assassinated at a rally.

On April 4, 1968, civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on his hotel room's balcony. Emotionally-charged looting and riots followed, putting even more pressure on the Johnson administration to push through additional civil rights laws.

Fair Housing Act of 1968

The Fair Housing Act became law on April 11, 1968, just days after King's assassination. It prevented housing discrimination based on race, sex, national origin and religion. It was also the last legislation enacted during the civil rights era.

The civil rights movement was an empowering yet precarious time for Black Americans. The efforts of civil rights activists and countless protesters of all races brought about legislation to end segregation, Black voter suppression and discriminatory employment and housing practices.

Sources

A Brief History of Jim Crow. Constitutional Rights Foundation.
Civil Rights Act of 1957. Civil Rights Digital Library.
Document for June 25th: Executive Order 8802: Prohibition of Discrimination in the Defense Industry. National Archives.
Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-In. African American Odyssey.
Little Rock School Desegregation (1957). The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute Stanford.
Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute Stanford.
Rosa Marie Parks Biography. Rosa and Raymond Parks.
Selma, Alabama, (Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965). BlackPast.org.
The Civil Rights Movement (1919-1960s). National Humanities Center.
The Little Rock Nine. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior: Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site.
Turning Point: World War II. Virginia Historical Society.

Photo Galleries

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Civil Rights Movement: Timeline, Key Events & Leaders | HISTORY

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The civil rights movement was a struggle for justice and equality for African Americans that took place mainly in the 1950s and 1960s. Among its leaders were Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, the Little Rock Nine, Rosa Parks and many others.

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In the greatest mass movement in modern American history, black demonstrations swept the country seeking constitutional equality at the national level, as well as an end to Massive Resistance (state and local government-supported opposition to school desegregation) in the South. Presidential executive orders, the passage of two Civil Rights Acts, and the federal government's first military enforcement of civil rights brought an end to de jure segregation. The success of this movement inspired other minorities to employ similar tactics.

Three years after the Supreme Court ruled school segregation unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education and two years after the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the first civil rights bill since Reconstruction. The 1957 Civil Rights Act created the independent U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Although the Commission was limited to fact-finding, its reports helped shape the breakthrough Civil Rights Act of 1964, which also provided the Commission with greater authority.

Gains in civil rights varied for minorities during this era. Hispanics lost ground as they experienced mass deportations of legal and illegal immigrants in Operation Wetback, educational segregation in Southwest schools, and police brutality cases that rocked Los Angeles. In contrast, the re-emergence of a women's rights movement in the 1960s resulted in significant civil rights gains: adoption of the 1963 Equal Pay Act, the prohibition of inequality based on gender in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the breaching of barriers to employment for women.

Asian Americans likewise experienced gains and losses in civil rights. The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 permitted Japanese immigrants to become citizens but contained restrictive quotas based on race and country of origin. Chinese Americans, especially during the McCarthy era, found themselves targets of suspicion and possible deportation following the Communist takeover of China. During this period, however, Asian Americans began their own social, cultural, and political initiatives to challenge the status quo and advance their civil rights.

During this time, the homophile movement grew and changed direction. Gays and lesbians in the "bar culture" engaged in various forms of resistance to police repression by insisting on their right to gather in public. In cities across the country, for example, working-class lesbian bars nurtured a world where women made public their same-sex desire. This cultural resistance, along with the formal political efforts of homophile organizations, laid the basis for the contemporary gay and lesbian movement.

African American mass demonstrations, televised racial violence, and the federally enforced desegregation of higher education institutions, as well as the black passive resistance movement of the early 1960s led to adoption of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. Considered the most comprehensive civil rights legislation in U.S. history, the act granted the federal government strong enforcement powers in the area of civil rights. It prohibited tactics to limit voting; guaranteed racial and religious minorities equal access to public accommodations; outlawed job discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; continued the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; and established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

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The Modern Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1964 - Civil Rights (U.S. National Park Service)

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An overview of the major pivotal moments in the Modern Civil Rights Movement (1954-1964)