Black Organizing in the Twentieth Century | APAAS

Black Organizing in the Twentieth Century

This section covers the origins and evolution of the modern Civil Rights Movement and the many issues of discrimination and segregation civil rights activists worked to dismantle during this period. Topics may include:
 


Image Source: United Press International. New York [school boycotts]. February 3, 1964. Photograph. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC09733.03.

A group of Black and White students carrying signs while walking across the Brooklyn Bridge; signs have slogans like "Equal Educational Opportunities Now" and "Jim Crow Can't Teach Democracy."

  • Topics 4.3–4.7

AP African American Studies Guide

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Topic 4.3

African Americans and the Second World War: Double V Campaign and the G.I. Bill

Learning Objectives

Essentials

Learning Objectives

LO 4.3.A

Describe African Americans’ involvement in the Second World War.

LO 4.3.B

Explain how the Double V Campaign emerged during the Second World War.

LO 4.3.C

Describe African Americans’ access to the benefits of the G.I. Bill.

Essentials

Terms

  • Tuskegee Airmen
  • “Double Victory”/“Double V” Campaign
  • G.I. Bill

Required Sources

You will need to understand and be able to use these materials for the AP exam.

Additional Resources

You can further develop your knowledge of this topic with primary and secondary sources.

Scan of FDR's letter to Joseph Curran, typewritten on White House stationery.

FDR on Racial Discrimination

1942

Read a transcription and a bit of historical context behind Franklin D. Roosevelt’s letter to Joseph Curran concerning Executive Order 8802 and discrimination against Black sailors.

  • Primary Source
A color photograph of an outdoor train platform with a wall of glass panels overlooking the street below; the images include a propeller airplane, a Tuskegee airman, a car, and horse racing.

“Illuminations”

by Darryl Westly

View a work of art on the Long Island Rail Road paying homage, in part, to the Tuskegee Airmen.

  • Work of Art
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Featured Videos

These videos from Black History in Two Minutes (or So) feature condensed, engaging, and fact-packed stories.


Take a deeper dive into the impact of the GI Bill in this video.


Learn more about the Double V Campaign as proposed by James G. Thompson to the Pittsburgh Courier.

Topic 4.4

Discrimination, Segregation, and the Origins of the Civil Rights Movement

Learning Objectives

Essentials

Learning Objectives

LO 4.4.A

Describe the enduring forms of segregation and discrimination in daily life that African Americans faced in the first half of the twentieth century.

LO 4.4.B

Explain the rationale for the Brown v. Board of Education decision to overturn “separate but equal.”

LO 4.4.C

Explain how different groups responded to school integration as a result of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Essentials

Terms

  • The Civil Rights Movement
  • Brown v. Board of Education
  • Doll test
  • De facto (vs. de jure) segregation
  • Little Rock Nine

Required Sources

You will need to understand and be able to use these materials for the AP exam.

Gordon Parks’s Photographs of Kenneth and Mamie Clark’s “Doll Test” (1947)

Gordon Parks captured photographs of Dr. Kenneth Clark and Dr. Mamie Clark’s psychological tests detailing the effects of segregation on children for Ebony magazine in 1947. These “doll tests” and the ensuing 1950 report, Effect of Prejudice and Discrimination on Personality Development, became the basis for footnote 11 of the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954. Learn more about Parks’s photographs of the “doll test” on the Gordon Parks Foundation website.

A young Black boy sits, heads in hands, and points toward a white baby doll held in the left hand of Kenneth Clark, a Black man whose white shirt and gray pinstriped jacket sleeves are visible. in Dr. Clark's right hand is a black baby doll.
A young Black boy wearing a plaid zip-up sweater holding a white baby doll, as a black baby doll sits upright on a table. Kenneth Clark, a bespectacled Black man wearing a gray pinstriped suit (jacket, vest, pants), white shirt, and patterned tie, looks on in the background.

Additional Resources

You can further develop your knowledge of this topic with primary and secondary sources.

An abstract multicolored mural above a bus depot, with a blue and white bus pulling into the depot in the right foreground.

“Mother Hale’s Garden”

by Shinique Smith

Explore the life and career of an activist and community organizer through this work of public art.

  • Work of Art
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Featured Videos

These videos from Black History in Two Minutes (or So) feature condensed, engaging, and fact-packed stories.


Examine the process of desegregating schools after the Brown v. Board of Education decision.


Take a deep dive into Mamie Till Mobley’s fearless efforts to memorialize the lynching of her son Emmett and galvanize the fight for equal protection under the law.

Resources from Our Partners

We have teamed up with New American History on interactive resources exploring America’s past and harnessing the power of digital media, curiosity, and inquiry.

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Barbara Johns’ Grand Plan

The students who led the walkout at Robert Russa Moton High School in Prince Edward County, Virginia, became litigants in Davis v. County School Board (1954), the only case initiated by a student-led protest. 

Explore Activity

Topic 4.5

Redlining and Housing Discrimination

Learning Objectives

Essentials

Learning Objectives

LO 4.5.A

Explain the long-term effects of housing discrimination on African Americans in the second half of the twentieth century.

Essentials

Terms

  • Fair Housing Act
  • FHA Underwriting Manual
  • Redlining
  • Environmental discrimination
  • Jitneys

Organizations

  • Federal Housing Administration

Required Sources

You will need to understand and be able to use these materials for the AP exam.

Additional Resources

You can further develop your knowledge of this topic with primary and secondary sources.

A five-piece mural made out of steel grates of a person working in a field.

“Urban Garden Rail”

by Saya Woolfalk

Explore responses to food access issues in segregated communities through this work of art.

  • Work of Art

Resources from Our Partners

We have teamed up with New American History on interactive resources exploring America’s past and harnessing the power of digital media, curiosity, and inquiry.

New American History Logo

Mapping Inequality, Redlining in New Deal America

In these interactive maps, learn about the practice of redlining whereby lenders withheld mortgages from African Americans and other people of color.

Explore Activity

The Lines That Shape Our Cities

View a StoryMap that connects present-day environmental inequalities to redlining policies of the 1930s.

Explore Activity

Topic 4.6

Major Civil Rights Organizations

Learning Objectives

Essentials

Learning Objectives

LO 4.6.A

Describe the essential methods of the major civil rights organizations.

LO 4.6.B

Explain how nonviolent resistance strategies mobilized the Civil Rights movement.

LO 4.6.C

Explain how civil rights activism in the mid-twentieth century led to federal legislative achievements.

Essentials

Terms

  • Civil disobedience
  • Birmingham Children’s Crusade
  • March on Washington
  • The Mississippi Freedom Summer project
  • Civil Rights Act of 1964
  • Voting Rights Act of 1965

Organizations

  • National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
  • Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
  • Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
  • Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
  • Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

Required Sources

You will need to understand and be able to use these materials for the AP exam.

Additional Resources

You can further develop your knowledge of this topic with primary and secondary sources.

Photograph shows a procession of African Americans, with two women in the foreground, carrying signs for equal rights, integrated schools, decent housing, and an end to bias.

The March on Washington: A Virtual Tour

with Clayborne Carson

Join the director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University for a virtual tour of the 1963 March on Washington.
 

  • Video
Scan of the broadside, reading I AM A MAN in bold black letters with "AM" underlined.

Civil Rights Posters

1968

Explore the historical context behind two posters from the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers' strike.

  • Primary Source
Scan of the front page of the Pacific Stars and Stripes Newspaper from August 30, 1963, featuring a large image of the 1963 March on Washington.

The March on Washington

with Bryson Bruce, Jermain Corbin, and Sandra Trenholm

Explore archival materials related to the March on Washington and the ensuing press coverage.

  • Video
Scan of the front page of the Negro Heroes comic book, featuring a large illustration of Jackie Robinson wearing a Dodgers jersey and catching a baseball.

Jackie Robinson

with Jason Butler, Taína Quiñones, and Sandra Trenholm

Explore a comic book about Jackie Robinson’s rookie year and letters written by Richard Nixon and Robert Kennedy to Jackie Robinson about the Civil Rights Movement.

  • Video
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Featured Videos

These videos from Black History in Two Minutes (or So) feature condensed, engaging, and fact-packed stories.


Take a deep dive into John Lewis's career in SNCC and the US House of Representatives.


Gain a greater understanding of King’s life and legacy.


Explore the impact of SNCC and the response from colleges and universities.


Learn more about the Poor People’s Campaign, the last phase of Martin Luther King’s career before his assassination.

Resources from Our Partners

We have teamed up with New American History on interactive resources exploring America’s past and harnessing the power of digital media, curiosity, and inquiry.

Logo for Bunk History

New American History Logo

The Struggle in Black and White: Activist Photographers Who Fought for Civil Rights

None of these iconic photographs would exist without the brave photographers documenting the civil rights movement. 

Explore Activity

Topic 4.7

Black Women’s Leadership and Grassroots Organizing in the Civil Rights Movement

Learning Objectives

Essentials

Learning Objectives

LO 4.7.A

Describe the ways Black women leaders furthered the goals of the major civil rights organizations and grassroots efforts.

LO 4.7.B

Describe the ways grassroots organizing beyond the South advanced the goals of the Civil Rights movement.

Essentials

People

  • Ella Baker
  • Fannie Lou Hamer
  • Dorothy Height

Organizations

  • Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
  • National Council of Negro Women
  • Coordinating Council of Community Organizations

Required Sources

You will need to understand and be able to use these materials for the AP exam.

Additional Resources

You can further develop your knowledge of this topic with primary and secondary sources.

Mary McLeod Bethune seated at her desk in Bethune-Cookman College.

Mary McLeod Bethune’s Impact

with Noliwe Rooks

Learn about Mary McLeod Bethune’s life, her involvement in politics and civil rights, and her work’s lasting impact. 

  • Video
Expand

Featured Videos

These videos from Black History in Two Minutes (or So) feature condensed, engaging, and fact-packed stories.


Learn more about Ella Baker’s trailblazing leadership as part of SCLC and her advisement of SNCC in this video.


Explore Brenda Travis’s tireless organizing in SNCC and the McComb Five.