• Gunnar Myrdal and An American Dilemma
• The Double-V Campaign and the Rise of African-American Protest Politics
• Executive Order 8802 and the Fair Employment Practices Commission
• The Hidden Transcript of Black Resistance to the War

• Swedish Sociologist eager to study race relations in the U.S. in hopes of finding models for resisting the Rise of Fascism in Europe.
• Hired to Coordinate Study of U.S. Race Relations Sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation
• Viewed "Negro Problem" as Residing in White Minds, Not Black Bodies, i.e. white racist attitudes, not black racial inferiority, were at the root of the problem of racism in the U.S.
• Argues that Racial Segregation and Discrimination threaten to Corrupt the "American Creed" (i.e., the national commitment to individual rights, legal due process, and democratic governments), thus undercutting the base of support for Democratic Institutions. In this way, Myrdal was seeking to appeal to white self-interest and patriotism, not white altruism, in order to encourage majority support for a civil rights program.

Up South: Black Life in the Urban North

• The Great Migration: 700,000-1 million African Americans move North during the 1910's, up to a million more in the 1920's. Detroit's black population grows from 5,000 in 1910 to 150,000 in 1940 to 300,000 in 1950. Push Factors: rural poverty, racial terror. Pull Factors: industrial job opportunities created by WW's I & II, the opportunity to live in a free (or at least more free) society.
• Segregation as Customary Practice While segregation was not established by law I the north, it was widely practiced in employment, housing and public accommodations.
• Discrimination in Housing and Employment
• The Detroit Race Riot of 1943: While the riot was actual sparked by tensions over the use of Belle Island, its roots lay in tensions over inadequate housing in the city.
• The Sojourner Truth Homes Controversy: White and Black activists struggled to win control of the Truth Homes for war workers and other newcomers to the city during the war
• The Sipes v. McGee Case: The Sipes v. McGee case, which is recounted in The Color of Courage, resulted from the decision of a black family (the McGees) to purchase a home in a neighborhood in which a racial covenant banned the sales of homes to blacks. While the Supreme Court eventually ruled that racial covenants were unenforceable, the determination of the white homeowners association to prevent racial integration reflected the ways in which federal housing policy had effectively linked racial prejudice to the structure of property values and the housing market in the nation's metropolitan areas.

• Double-V: Victory over Fascism abroad and Racism at Home The Double-V campaign was the response of African-Americans to World War II. In the aftermath of World War I, in which W.E.B. DuBois and the NAACP's call for African-Americans to join the war effort in hopes that they would be rewarded with increased civil rights upon their return, the NAACP and the nation's black newspapers urged blacks to simultaneously support the war against fascism and to work for racial justice at home.
• A. Philip Randolph and the March on Washington Movement In the Spring of 1941, as the nation's industrial sector was being converted to military production, A. Philip Randolph, president of the all-black Sleeping Car Porters' Union, organized the March on Washington Movement to press for equal treatment for blacks in both the military and defense industries. He threatened to lead an all-black march on Washington in June, 1942 if the president refused to ban segregation in the military and racial discrimination in defense hiring.
• Executive Order 8802 and the FEPC. In response, Roosevelt agrees to issue an executive order (8802) if Randolph agreed to call off the march, which Randolph. 8802 also established the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) to investigate claims of racial discrimination and promote fair hiring policies.
• The Wartime Fight Against Discrimination in Defense Employment The FEPC, however, lacked significant enforcement powers of its own. It could only petition the Pentagon and the War Production Board, which was responsible for purchasing military supplies for the war effort, to take off against suppliers that discriminated. Still, black activists and workers were able to use the FEPC to press for significant employment gains for black workers in areas like airplane and ship production.

• Malcolm X and the Japanese As Lipsitz recounts, there was a hidden transcript of African-Americans refusing to risk their lives for a country that failed to recognize their full citizenship rights. Declarations of support for the Japanese, as fellow peoples of color, was just one device used to avoid military service. While Malcolm Little's actions (he would not become Malcolm X until he joined the Nation of Islam following the war) seem to have been primarily performative, Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam served a prison term in the Federal Penitentiary in Milan, MI for refusing induction into the U.S. military. While little known outside Detroit and Chicago in the war years, Muhammad's argument that African-Americans owed little to a nation that it had denies them equal citizenship and opportunity for so long would win him a growing base of support following the war.
• The Zoot Suiters Robin Kelley has argued that a similar kind of resistance can be seen in the Zoot Suit culture that Malcolm Little participated in during the war. In a time when Americans were being asked to sacrifice access to consumer goods in order to support the war effort, Zoot Suiters, who were primarily African-American and Mexican-American, wore outrageously long and baggy suits (which required excessive amounts of cloth) and publicly demonstrated that their primary interest was in the pursuit of the pleasures of dance and similar activities.
• Supporting the War Effort, While Avoiding the War But as Lipsitz recounting of historian John Hope Franklin's wartime resistance, black avoidance of the war could take less flamboyant and socially disreputable forms. Franklin's response to discrimination in the military was to focus his efforts on the development of his scholarly career. As a new father eager not to have to leave his family, my grandfather used his training in electrical engineering at Howard University, to secure for himself a position teaching electrical shop at a vocational high school and then worked summers in a naval shipyard in order to maintain employment that kept him exempt from the military draft.