Suburbanization In The 1950's

Lots of areas in the U.S. had segregated schools in 1954, held by “separate but equal.” In 1954, the NAACP was trying to end segregation. They filed class actions schools in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware, on behalf of the students and their families, trying to integrate schools. One of the most prominent cases was Brown v. Board of Education. Oliver Brown, the plaintiff, claimed that Topeka’s segregation violated the Equal Protection Laws Clause. He claimed segregated schools were not equal. This case went to the Supreme Court after the lower-level courts ruled that school the school segregations were equal to be constitutional.

During the 1950’ many public and social booms happened. For instance the Baby Boom was huge in the 1950’s. In 1957 it was estimated that 1 baby was born every 7 seconds. (Silverman 1) Also suburban living was expanding and becoming very common. Starting in

Back in 1950, most people lived in an urban city. Now, more than half of the United States population lives in the suburbs. (Doc. 2) People aren’t as friendly and outgoing as they were back then. In the 1950’s, everyone was friends with everyone. We don’t have as many neighborhood shops today. They can’t compete with the big chain stores and restaurants. (Doc. 3)

In the 1950’s American families went through several changes, some of which were positive and beneficial. There were many new technological breakthroughs. Additionally, new forms of entertainment created a generational divide between young people and adults. Americans entered a period of postwar abundance, with expanding suburbs, growing families, and more white-collar jobs. The average income of American families roughly tripled. Thousands of families rushed to buy the inexpensive homes. New suburbs multiplied throughout the United States. Affordability was the key reason most Americans moved to the suburbs.

During the “Baby Boomer” era, following WWII, America underwent one of the largest demographic shifts and population growths in history. Huge amounts of home construction on the outskirts of America’s largest cities, known as “levittowns” became the new staple of the American dream, with the houses sporting two car garages, and white picket fences. These low density, predominantly middle class residential districts, were America’s first true suburbs. These suburbs were constructed mainly in response to the new postwar consumerism that enveloped the parents of the baby boomers. With the new economy, affordable housing, and most families becoming single income dependent, families grew bigger and bigger. The 1947 passing of the bill that lead to the interstate highway system, only added fuel to the fire of suburbanization. With the new interstate highway system, more affordable and fuel efficient automobiles, and the government aiding in the financing of new suburban homes, the choice seemed elementary. All of these factors pushing to the suburban movement, only spurred the baby boomers on, and between 1940-50, there was an 835% percent increase in living births with nearly 4 million children being born every year. In 1940, 19.5% of the United States population lived in what would be considered to be suburban areas outside of large metropolitan areas, however, by 1960; the number was pushing nearly 40%. The postwar suburbanization of America during the baby boomer

Overall, I believe that the suburbs of the 1950s were just as equally positive as they were negative. They were positive in the sense that they enabled a stronger, more complete middle class, provided infrastructure for a modern America, and redefined the American dream. However, these period had its equal amount of setbacks racially. The suburbs directly enhanced the amount of segregation in America, drastically separated black neighborhoods from white ones. This era also preached uniformity, which was a direct characteristic from communism.

In 1909 blacks and whites, led by W. E. B. DuBois and Arthur and Joe Spingarn, formed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), an organization dedicated to fighting for racial equality and ending segregation. The NAACP challenged segregation through its Legal Defense and Education Fund. From 1936 to 1950 the organization won a number of cases leading to the desegregation of law schools and other professional schools at segregated universities in Mississippi, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Texas. The NAACP also had some success in forcing states to equalize public school funding and to pay teachers in black schools at the same rate as those in white schools. But throughout the South, public education for blacks remained terribly

However, it became apparent that blacks were rarely treated equal through there evidently being a huge disparity in the spending on white schools compared to black schools. Additionally, the Fourteenth Amendment “… passed a ruling stating that the Enforcement Act of 1871, which forbade meetings of Ku Klux Klan members, was unconstitutional.” (“The Supreme Court's Failure to Protect Blacks' Rights.”) Founded in 1866, the KKK extended into a majority of southern states by 1870 and became an established resistance to the economic and political equalities for African Americans which was what the Republican Party was correspondingly trying to pass during the Party’s Reconstruction-era. Therefore, there was a preservation of white supremacy which subsequently encouraged an increase in acts of violence against African Americas, especially directed towards those who were active in politics.

With the overwhelming amount of Levittown houses, the obsession to obtain the perfect American “ideal family” as seen on TV and the unspoken agreement to fear any and all foreign ideas and values, the 1950s were revealed to be a decade of prosperity, conformity and consensus. Just ten years later the atmosphere in America was shockingly different; the 1960s were a decade of turbulence, protest and disillusionment due to the ongoing struggle for civil rights, arising feminism, and the Vietnam War.

The Ku Klux Klan or KKK was founded in 1886 but by 1870 had spread to every southern state, its primary goal was to reestablish white supremacy, they did this through an underground campaign of intimidation and violence directed at white and black republican leaders, despite the lawlessness of its actions the KKK had almost unrestricted support from whites across the south.Jim Crow laws did not help this matter, Jim Crow laws were laws that mandated segregation in all public places. The conditions for African Americans were constantly inferior and underfunded compared to those of the whites Americans. In the pivotal 1896 Plessy VS Ferguson case the supreme court ruled that ‘Separate but Equal’ was constitutional however the facilities were never equal. In 1900 about 90% of blacks in America lived in the Southern States, where segregation was very strong. The Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s saw a rise in KKK activity, bombing black schools and churches, and violence against black and white activists. The treatment of blacks around America was another significant cause of the Birmingham movement, if blacks hadn’t faced such systematic and brutal discrimination then such direct action may not have been

This organization was founded in 1909 by sixty black and white citizens. In 1910 they published Crisis, a magazine that covered achievements for blacks in the arts, business and several other social fields. Most of the NAACP’s efforts where focused on anti-lynching laws and gaining civil rights for blacks without discrimination. When they heard of Oliver Brown’s problem they were eager to help. So in 1951 the NAACP requested an injunction that would outlaw the segregation of Topeka’s schools. Their defense was that not only were the schools inherently equal, what with the conditions of the schools themselves, but also that it was detrimental to black children’s education and future to be living with such segregation. Black children must learn to associate with white children who are a large percentage of the population in order for their curriculum not to be curtailed. The Board of Education’s defense was that black children should learn in segregated schools because they lived in a segregated society and would for the rest of their lives, therefore teaching them at a young age the way society is will prepare them for the future. They also argued that such blacks as Washington Carver and Frederick Douglas went to segregated schools and became great successes.

Although, the 1950’s were looked at as peace and ‘happy times’ it was a tad bit different from what was advertised. The 1950’s were an era of prosperity, growth, and chaos in the United States. The population during this time was about 151,684,000 with an unemployment figure around 3,288,000 (Bradley). Industries were expanding in order to meet the needs for people

During the 1960s baby boomers were dropping $20 billion every year in to the U.S. economy. In the 1950s and 1960s all the people in the U.S. caused the construction industry to grow as all new houses were being built.(AP Study Notes) With the economy making more money the G.I. Bill helped returning soldiers get a suburban house cheaper than they could get a house in the city. These houses were perfect for the young families and by 2000 half of America was living in the suburbs. Since the

The end to segregation started on May 17, 1954 with the Supreme Court’s ruling in “Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, that separated public schools for whites and blacks were illegal” (Beals, 1995, p. 12). By May 24, 1955 plans had been made to limit integration to Central High School.

The 1950s were characterized as a prosperous and conformist decade for many reasons. The first and most widespread of these reasons was the development of the suburbs. As masses of Southern blacks migrated northward to the big cities, more rich and middle-class families left to live in the suburbs to escape the crime, redlining, and blockbusting of the cities. This mass migration later became known as the “white flight” (Document A). The white families that moved into the suburbs were the perfect picture of conformity—living in row upon row of identical “Levittown” houses, with little individuality or distinction. Furthermore, American families of the time often took the form of the “nuclear family” with two parents, two children, and often a pet like a dog or cat. This new “middle class” earned between $3,000 and $10,000 a year and included 60 percent of the American people by the mid-1950s. Fortune magazine described Americans as “a great mass…buy[ing] the same things—the same staples, the same appliances, the same cars, the same furniture, and much the