How Did The Cold War Impact Upon African Americans During The 1950s?
Assessment Item Two: Minor Assignment
Chosen Question: (1)
Compare the two articles and comment on how the Cold War impacted upon African Americans during the 1950s.
Historically, the treatment of African Americans was atrocious: unfair and dehumanising. Throughout the 1950s, this racial discrimination was noisily protested against and the recognition from governments allowed the African American voice to reach its zenith. The Cold War and the intense ideological disputes between the United States and the Soviet Union aided in the strengthened awareness towards this inequality and led to a slight advancement of the societal position for African Americans. However, with the improvement of the African American voice, coinciding with the war at hand, came governmental fear, resulting in public manipulation and …show more content…
The American government grew suspicious of internal communist subversion and as a result the loyalty of all ‘free men’, and especially the loyalty of African American’s was deemed questionable. With this anxiety, came the intrusion of the loyalty program. This program, introduced by President Harry. S. Truman and adopted by Senator Joseph McCarthy, established a framework for a wide-ranging and powerful government apparatus – the Federal Bureau of Investigations - to perform loyalty checks on every employee. If the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) had ‘reasonable grounds’ to doubt an employee’s allegiance, he or she would be dismissed. The FBI “could not tolerate independent thinkers either, as there was one thing considered every bit as bad as being a Red (communist), and that was being a Black who spoke out against American racism”12, thus “individuals who had been active in progressive causes, particularly in the African American freedom struggle, were targeted and disproportionately
Chosen Question: (1)
Compare the two articles and comment on how the Cold War impacted upon African Americans during the 1950s.
Historically, the treatment of African Americans was atrocious: unfair and dehumanising. Throughout the 1950s, this racial discrimination was noisily protested against and the recognition from governments allowed the African American voice to reach its zenith. The Cold War and the intense ideological disputes between the United States and the Soviet Union aided in the strengthened awareness towards this inequality and led to a slight advancement of the societal position for African Americans. However, with the improvement of the African American voice, coinciding with the war at hand, came governmental fear, resulting in public manipulation and …show more content…
The American government grew suspicious of internal communist subversion and as a result the loyalty of all ‘free men’, and especially the loyalty of African American’s was deemed questionable. With this anxiety, came the intrusion of the loyalty program. This program, introduced by President Harry. S. Truman and adopted by Senator Joseph McCarthy, established a framework for a wide-ranging and powerful government apparatus – the Federal Bureau of Investigations - to perform loyalty checks on every employee. If the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) had ‘reasonable grounds’ to doubt an employee’s allegiance, he or she would be dismissed. The FBI “could not tolerate independent thinkers either, as there was one thing considered every bit as bad as being a Red (communist), and that was being a Black who spoke out against American racism”12, thus “individuals who had been active in progressive causes, particularly in the African American freedom struggle, were targeted and disproportionately