January 1946

In 1946, a documented wave of violence targets Black veterans returning from WWII, particularly in the South. Sergeant John C. Jones is lynched in Minden, Louisiana. Private First Class Authur McDuffie is killed in uniform in Georgia. Veteran Sergeant Macio Snipes is murdered after voting. Veterans are attacked for wearing uniforms, asserting rights, or refusing to show deference. The NAACP documents at least 56 Black men and women lynched in 1946, six of them veterans. The violence reflects white terror at the prospect of Black soldiers demanding the democracy they fought for.

In 1946, a documented wave of violence targets Black veterans returning from WWII, particularly in the South. Sergeant John C. Jones is lynched in Minden, Louisiana. Veteran Sergeant Maceo Snipes is murdered after voting. Veterans are attacked for wearing uniforms, asserting rights, or refusing to show deference. The NAACP documents at least 56 Black men and women lynched in 1946, six of them veterans. The violence reflects white terror at the prospect of Black soldiers demanding the democracy they fought for.

President Roosevelt's Fair Employment Practice Committee, created 1941 to prohibit discrimination by federal contractors, is defunded by Congress in 1946 after Southern Democrats block its renewal. Black workers are systematically excluded from high-wage manufacturing, construction, and professional jobs through union segregation (AFL building trades maintain segregated locals), employer discrimination, and federal contractor non-enforcement. The median Black family income is 51 percent of white family income in 1947, reflecting structural exclusion from postwar prosperity.

President Roosevelt's Fair Employment Practice Committee, created 1941 to prohibit discrimination by federal contractors, is defunded by Congress in 1946 after Southern Democrats block its renewal. Black workers are systematically excluded from high-wage manufacturing, construction, and professional jobs through union segregation, employer discrimination, and federal contractor non-enforcement. The median Black family income is 51 percent of white family income in 1947, reflecting structural exclusion from postwar prosperity.

President Roosevelt's Fair Employment Practice Committee, created 1941 to prohibit discrimination by federal contractors, is defunded by Congress in 1946 after Southern Democrats block its renewal. Black workers are systematically excluded from high-wage manufacturing, construction, and professional jobs. The median Black family income is 51 percent of white family income in 1947, reflecting structural exclusion from postwar prosperity.

After successfully defending most Columbia, TN riot defendants, Thurgood Marshall's car is stopped multiple times by police and a white mob on a rural Tennessee road at night. Companions believe they are about to be lynched. Marshall is removed from one car while police search for whiskey (to frame him for drunk driving) and his companions rush him away before the mob closes in. The incident illustrates how even prominent civil rights attorneys faced existential danger in the South.