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How Far Did the Position of Black Americans Improve in the Years 1945-55?

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How far did the position of black Americans improve in the years 1945-55? (30 marks)

The position of black Americans improved to a certain extent in the years 1945-55. The period certainly saw lots of ‘de jure’ improvements in the lives of black Americans, particularly those in the Southern states, but there were limited ‘de facto’ improvements to go with this. Nevertheless, some progress towards equality had been made in the areas of education, transport, public amenities, voting rights, employment and housing.
There was a significant move towards equality in education in the period 1945-55. Court cases such as Sweatt v. Painter in 1950 and Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954 achieved great publicity and initiated the end of segregation in the education system. They also showed black Americans that the Supreme Court was on their side as it ruled in favour of the NAACP in both cases, the former dealing with the rights of students to graduate-level education and the latter dealing with the rights of younger students. This gave black Americans confidence that segregation could be successfully challenged. However, these ‘de jure’ victories led to little ‘de facto’ change. For example, by 1957, only 750 of 6,300 southern school districts had been desegregated. This was true despite the Brown II ruling by the Supreme Court, which stated that the desegregation of education should occur ‘with all deliberate speed’. Nevertheless, the Brown case was highly symbolic, as the NAACP had won a case that struck at the heart of education. The ‘de jure’ improvements to education were very significant in the period 1945-55, but little ‘de facto’ progress had been made.
The position of black Americans in the political arena also saw some improvement in the period 1945-55, particularly in the North. For example, black voters in sixteen northern states held the balance

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