How have black Americans fought back against oppression and worked to build a better society for all?

At the end of World War II, African Americans were poised to make far-reaching demands to end racism. They were unwilling to give up the minimal gains that had been made during the war. The campaign for African American rights—usually referred to as the civil rights movement or the freedom movement—went forward in the 1940s and ’50s in persistent and deliberate steps. In the courts the NAACP successfully attacked restrictive covenants in housing, segregation in interstate transportation, and discrimination in public recreational facilities.