paign for black civil rights, historian C. Vann Woodward found
the twentieth century phenomenon "more profound and impressive ...
deeper, surer, less contrived, more spontaneous."[19-2] Again in
contrast to the original, the so-called second reconstruction period
found black Americans uniting in a demand for social justice so long
withheld. In 1953, the year before the Supreme Court decision to
desegregate the schools, Clarence Mitchell of the NAACP gave voice to
the revolutionary rise in black expectations:

Twenty years ago the Negro was satisfied if he could have even a
half-decent school to go to (and took it for granted that it
would be a segregated school) or if he could go to the hotel in
town or the restaurant maybe once a year for some special
interracial dinner and meeting. Twenty years ago much of the
segregation pattern was taken for granted by the Negro. Now it is
different.[19-3]

[Footnote 19-2: C. Vann Woodward, _Strange Career of
Jim Crow_, p. 170. This account of the civil rights
movement largely follows Woodward's famous study,
but the following works have also been consulted:
Benjamin Muse, _Ten Years of Prelude: The Story of
Integration Since the Supreme Court's 1954
Decision_ (New York: Viking Press, 1964); Constance
M. Green, _The Secret City: A History of Race
Relations in the Nation's Capital_ (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1967); Anthony Lewis
and the New York _Times_, _Portrait of a Decade_
(New York: New York _Times_, 1964); Franklin, _From
Slavery to Freedom; Freedom to the Free: A Report
to the President by the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights_ (Washington: Government Printing Office,
1963); _Report of the National Advisory Commission
on Civil Disorders_; Interv, Nichols with Clarence
Mitchell, 1953, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]

[Footnote 19-3: Interv, Nichols with Mitchell.]

The difference was understandable. The rapid urbanization of many
black Americans, coupled with their experience in World War II,
especially in the armed forces and in defense industries, had enhanced
their economic