The economic
advances that almost all Americans made during the 1920s, including some African-Americans,
might have been enough to kickstart a civil rights movement, if the Depression hadn't
immediately destroyed the tiny black middle class and distracted the nation for more than a
decade. Blacks were hit especially hard during the Great Depression, struggling through with
sharecropping in the South, and relegated largely to the service industry elsewhere and hard
labor in northern factories. While the economics of the rest of the country prevented social
advancement, it also for the most part kept racism, unlike how it had been in the 1920s, at a
less violent level. That is not to say the Ku Klux Klan was not still active.
As the Depression gave way to World War II, large numbers of African-Americans joined
the military or were drafted, just as it was for the rest of the country's population. While
fighting in segregated units, and rarely sent into combat, black soldiers served honorably and
fought well in units such as the Red Ball Express (blacks made up 75% of transport units), the
Tuskegee Airmen, and armored units. They served primarily in Europe and North Africa. They
also experienced difficulties adjusting back to a civilian life after the war in a society that
still, legally and socially told them they were second class citizens.
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