The quest for equality by black Americans played a central role in the struggle for civil
rights in the postwar era. Stemming from an effort dating back to the Civil War and
Reconstruction, the black movement had gained more momentum by the mid-twentieth
century. African Americans continued to press forward for more equality through
peaceful demonstrations and protests. But change came slowly indeed. Rigid segregation
of public accommodations remained the ruled in the South, despite a victory in the
Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott in 1955. School integration occurred after the Brown
v. Board of Education decision of 1954, but not without struggles. In the North, urban
ghettos grew, as the growth of blacks grew. Crowded public housing, poor schools, and
limited economic opportunities fostered serious discontent.
In the North and South alike, consciousness of the need to combat racial
discrimination grew. Support bubbled up from different social groups. Young people in
particular, most of them students, enlisted in the effort to change restricted patterns deeply
rooted in American life. In 1962, the civil rights movement accelerated. James Meredith,
a black air force veteran and student at Jackson State College, applied to the all-white
University of Mississippi and rejected on racial grounds. Suing to gain admission, he
carried his case to the Supreme Court, where Justice Hugo Black affirmed his claim. But
then Governor Ross Barnett, and adamant racist, announced that Meredith would not be
admitted, whatever the Court decision, and on one occasion personally blocked the way.
A major riot followed; tear gas covered the University grounds; and by the riots end, two
An even more violent confrontation began in April 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama,
where local black leaders encouraged Martin Luther King,Jr., to launch another attack on
the southern segregation. Forty perc
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