3 The struggle for civil rights, 1946–1959

Strikers from United Tobacco Workers Local 22 on the picket line in Winston-Salem, 1946. Courtesy Forsyth County Public Library. About the photograph

Many African Americans emerged from World War II intent on rejecting second-class citizenship once and for all. The Civil Rights Movement took shape in the years that followed. The military was desegregated. Freedom rides, bus boycotts, and strikes challenged Jim Crow laws. In North Carolina, a Senate campaign turned ugly over the issue of race, and in Robeson County, the Lumbee challenged the Ku Klux Klan — and won. In this chapter we’ll examine the origins of the Civil Rights Movement and analyze the reasons for its early successes and failures.