The Decade Period Of The African-American Freedom Struggle

The three-decade period beginning in the 1940s and carrying over into the 1960s was a highly important era for the African-American Freedom Struggle. During this period, black Americans were living in a highly militant environment, not just in the Deep South but in the entire United States as a whole. The era was also defined by highly organized efforts by black Americans to defend their personal dignity, to achieve legal recognition of civil rights and to gain greater socioeconomic status.
The importance of the Second World War (WWII) regarding African-American rights and freedom is frequently overlooked in today’s society. Many black Americans travelled to Europe in order to participate in the war, and became more informed and militant as
In addition, the Red Cross segregated blood for black and white soldiers until 1947, and the United States Navy and Marines did not begin to accept African-American soldiers until 1942. Many blacks who attempted to aid the war effort ended up working in subservient positions such as cooking and cleaning, and only a select few blacks served as pilots (black pilots were referred to as “Tuskegee airmen”). Meanwhile, many black people in the United States worked as police guards at military bases in the American South, where they oversaw and accompanied German and Italian prisoners of war. Ironically, due to the existing segregation laws, prisoners were allowed to eat at restaurants while their black guards were
In addition, several scenes of bombings and arsons are shown throughout the film. These scenes effectively portray Mississippi as a hotbed of racially-motivated terrorism, which is an accurate reflection of many parts of the Deep South during the 1960s (Birmingham, in particular). The beginning of the film also helps to establish the social and political context, by showing newspaper headlines and photographs regarding acts of violence toward African-Americans and by referencing the efforts of the Justice Department to protect James Meredith while he was attending the University of Mississippi as its first black student in 1962. (Ward says during a conversation with his partner, “I was there with Meredith at Ole Miss.”) In addition, there is a scene in which members of the Ku Klux Klan are shown lynching a black man, which was a common occurrence in the Deep South for many decades. More importantly, however, the film effectively conveys the fact that it was nearly impossible for justice in the South for white murderers who kill black people. It is initially implied when Anderson asks a Ku Klux Klan member if he enjoys killing black people, and the clan member responds, “I wouldn’t give it no more thought than wringing a cat’s neck! There ain’t no court in Mississippi that’d convict me for it.” It is later made more explicit when multiple men are put on trial for bombing and burning