ABSTRACT
As the end of World War II neared, and President Roosevelt’s attention returned to domestic issues, he put forth a bold vision for a second Bill of Rights focusing on the abolition of poverty. Soon afterward, ordinary citizens rose up against Jim Crow segregation in the streets and in the courts, and destroyed the legal foundation for segregation and racial discrimination. However, civil rights activists soon realized that ending Jim Crow laws and getting the right to vote did not end poverty and that new ideas were needed to eradicate it. Black leaders such as Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., argued for a change of strategy from civil rights to human rights, and the federal government launched its own “War on Poverty.”
