World War II and American Racial Politics
Public Opinion, the Presidency, and Civil Rights Advocacy

Examines the myriad consequences of World War II for racial attitudes and the presidential response to civil rights.

Steven White (Author)

9781108427630, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 July 2019

216 pages, 14 b/w illus. 10 tables
23.5 x 15.5 x 1.6 cm, 0.44 kg

'… White contributes to our knowledge about this important and interesting topic. World War II is a crucial era that has been the subject of many presumptuous accounts. White brings direct evidence to bear that provides a corrective to some of the overgeneralizations in the literature. Furthermore, White offers some guideposts about how scholars could extend this work by integrating public opinion (and other types of data) with the historical study of political institutions.' Joseph Stewart Jr, Congress & the Presidency

World War II played an important role in the trajectory of race and American political development, but the War's effects were much more complex than many assume. Steven White offers an extensive analysis of rarely utilized survey data and archival evidence to assess white racial attitudes and the executive branch response to civil rights advocacy. He finds that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the white mass public's racial policy attitudes largely did not liberalize during the war against Nazi Germany. In this context, advocates turned their attention to the possibility of unilateral action by the president, emphasizing a wartime civil rights agenda focused on discrimination in the defense industry and segregation in the military. This book offers a reinterpretation of this critical period in American political development, as well as implications for the theoretical relationship between war and the inclusion of marginalized groups in democratic societies.

1. Introduction
2. White racial attitudes, 1937–1950
3. White veterans and racial attitudes, 1946–1961
4. The Roosevelt Administration and civil rights during the Second World War
5. The Truman Administration, military service, and postwar civil rights
6. War, race, and American political development
Appendix
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB], Political science & theory [JPA], Politics & government [JP], Ethnic minorities & multicultural studies [JFSL1]