American as Apple Pie: How Terrorism Lost

Equality under the law for African Americans became possible only after public opinion and federal policy turned against the white supremacists who used violence to enforce segregation and deny rights to black citizens. This mid-century battle for American hearts and minds includes the voices of the participants in, and leaders of, such little-known events as the 1941 plan by A. Philip Randolph, leader of the all-black Pullman Porters union, to organize a wartime march on Washington; renewed threats of mass civil disobedience in the late 1940s, pressuring President Truman to order desegregation of the American military and the federal government; the national anti-lynching campaign led by Paul Robeson and others; the race riots taking place in towns throughout the country but relegated to the back pages in the name of maintaining an image of "unity" in time of war; the successful union organizing drives uniting black and white workers throughout the South; and much more. In these years a movement was forged that would place civil rights in the foreground of public and government attention.