ABSTRACT
In 1935, the Supreme Court, in its first ruling unfavorable to discrimination since the Reconstruction era, threw out a decision because blacks had been systematically excluded from jury duty. In 1944, the Court eliminated the "white primary", the device by which the Democratic Party in the South excluded blacks from an effective role by letting only whites vote in its primary elections. In 1942, only 42 percent of white Americans thought that blacks were as intelligent as whites. Many more people, including white Southerners, recognized that segregation and discrimination embarrassed the West in the Cold War struggle—although, in the 1950s, even some liberals regarded criticism of American mores by Asians and Africans as outrageous hypocrisy, given the latter's faults. A rise of hostility to whites among blacks, even within the civil rights movement was observable as early as 1963, even before the March on Washington, and even as the movement was scoring victory after victory.
