Slow Progress Towards Racial Equality

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Why was progress towards racial equality so slow in the period of 1945 – 1955 ? Following the Second World War , the African American movement towards racial equality radicalised as more African Americans , especially ex-soldiers realized that they deserved racial equality just as they had in Europe whilst fighting . This led to a giant leap in the fight for racial equality however , many argue that the speed at which it happened was equivalent to a snail’s pace as this was a new experience for most fighting for civil rights and so their actions were sometimes proven ineffective . This coupled with the lack of political support , the opposition by the public and South and the poor media attention led to the slow progress of racial equality between this time . Before this period of time , there had not been much opposition to racial inequality in the USA . In fact only one notable protest had taken place before war times . Therefore the civil rights movements were treading in unfamiliar waters as none of its activists had real experience of such things . That’s why they used ineffective methods like direct action . Direct action was ineffective as shown during the Journey of Reconciliation Protest as although it managed to prove that the bus companies in the South were acting illegally by continuing interstate bus segregation , there was no change in southern states to implement desegregated interstate buses and so they had failed to reach their goal . Also , even though there were many successful court cases such as the Brown Decision , the time it took to achieve their goals took very long , like in this very case which took 3 years for the supreme court to reach a verdict . However in the 60’s having been more knowledgeable of campaigning , the NAACP , coupled direct action with legal action and thus led to more notable success in the Montgomery bus boycott
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