African-Americans
Westward Movement and the Rise of Civil Rights Activism in California
The relatively small population of African Americans in California before World War II experienced discrimination in their search for housing and employment, but they actively fought for better treatment on a local scale. With the massive westward migration of blacks to work in the wartime industries, California experienced an influx of new ideas. One of the most important ideas to arrive was the belief that the fight for racial equality must be a concerted one, waged on a large scale. So the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), an organization founded in 1909 in New York, established its first Western Regional office in San Francisco in 1944. Through this and other organizations, such as the Congress for Racial Equality, old-timers and new arrivals alike created a vital civil rights movement in California. This movement would not only improve the lives of African Americans in subsequent decades, it would also help draft the agenda for movements for equality among other ethno-racial groups including Latinos and Asian Americans.
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