The Emergence of Historical Forensic Expertise by Vladimir Petrović

Author:Vladimir Petrović [Petrović, Vladimir]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Historiography, General, Social History
ISBN: 9781134996544
Google: fG5jDQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-10-26T16:19:04+00:00

Solving an “American Dilemma”: Desegregation between Law and Social Science

At the time of Palmer’s writing, over half a million Black soldiers served in the U.S. military in a global war against the blatantly racist regimes of the Axis.2 They were to return home, where in many a state they were treated as second-class citizens. Segregation was cutting deep into every aspect of everyday life of the Southern states:

The state of Texas did not allow interracial boxing matches. Florida did not permit white and black students to use the same editions of some textbooks. In Arkansas, white and black voters could not enter a polling place in the company of one another. North Carolina required racially separate washrooms in its factories. South Carolina required them in cotton mills. Four states required them in their mines. In six states, white and black prisoners could not be chained together. In seven states, tuberculosis patients were separated by race. In eight states, parks, playgrounds, bathing and fishing facilities, amusement parks, racetracks, pool halls, circuses, theaters and public halls were all segregated. Ten states required separate waiting rooms for bus and train travelers. Eleven states required Negro passengers to ride in the back of the buses and streetcars. Eleven states operated separate schools for blind. Fourteen states segregated railroad passengers on trains within their borders. Fourteen states segregated mental patients. Seventeen states required segregation of public schools, four others permitted the practice if the local communities wished it, and in the District of Columbia the custom has prevailed for nearly ninety years.3

It took a global shift induced by the Second World War to provide an adequate momentum for change, which had been on the agenda for decades. Black Americans were drafted into the military alongside the whites, they were dying alongside the whites, and they could rightfully expect to be treated like whites. Not coincidentally, the first attempts at desegregation started in the armed forces in the immediate postwar period, with the executive branch of government taking the lead during the presidency of Harry S. Truman.4 His administration also addressed the issue in wider context by establishing a Committee on Civil Rights in 1946.5 Its final report framed segregation both as a burning moral issue and a dire economic problem. With the onset of the Cold War, it was also seen as an international embarrassment, best expressed by the Secretary of the State, Dean Acheson: “The existence of discrimination against minority groups in this country has an adverse effect on our relations with other countries.”6 However, translating these recommendations into comprehensive federal legislation proved difficult, in the light of stiff resistance from the Southern states and their representatives. This cleavage presented a fruitful field for activism, drawing attention to paradoxes: during the war, in some Southern states, German prisoners of war were allowed in pubs from which Black people were barred. Meanwhile, the American Red Cross was still segregating the blood of Black and white people, in order not to mix it through transfusions. Dubbing

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