truman and his actions to civil rights

Truman

many black americans had voted for the republican party because slavery had ended in there rule. however many blacks voted for president roosevelt in large numbers in 1930-40 because of his popularity. becasue of this trend truman became commited to challenging southern racism.

Cold war 

truma thought that america had a moral duty to fight communism and promote freedom across the world. however he recognised that america would have to fight segregation at home first then fight for freedom abroad. he was also motivated by phillip randolph and other black campaigners.

to secure these rights, (1947)

1946 - truman established the presidents commitee on civil rights. these where asked to write a report examining the minorities in america.

first problem addressed was lynching, between 1882 and 1945, there had been over 300 lynchings in five of the southern states.

the second problem was police brutality. it admitted that racist violence was widedspread and that sometimes police would beat blacks untill they admitted to doing the crime.

the third problem concerned voting rights, showed that in 1944 presidentual election only 18% of black people in southern states had been able to vote because of the restrictions such as the grandfarther clause and literacy tests.

the fourth described discrimination in the armed forces. officially there was no discrimination however the report found that only 1 in 70 black soldiers were promoted to officer, whereas 1 in 7 white americans got promoted to officer.

the report also considered employment and education. it showed that black people clearly had fewer job oppurtunities, 62% of working black men were employed in lower class, low wage buisness of farmingcompared with the 28% of white men. there was also a large wage gap, on average black workers gained 47cents an hour whereas white workers gained 65 cents an hour. discrimination was also in education where white teachers where paid a larger sum then black teachers, black annual salary- $1,107 / white annual salary- $342.

the last report was on discrimination of health. in 1940 there was only 1 black doctor for every 3,377 black patients, whereas for every 1 white doctor…