International Politics and Civil Rights Policies in the United States, 1941-1960

Despite the impressive volume of literature on the civil rights movement and US race policies, the connection between American foreign policy during World War II and the postwar years and America’s race policy remains largely unexplored. Focusing on this gap, Professor Layton’s book shows that the revolutionary changes in world politics in the wake of WWII created new opportunities and pressure points for reforming US race policies. The Holocaust, the dismantling of colonial empires, the Cold War, and the establishment of the United Nations had a major impact in creating the Executive and Judicial branch of the Federal government shifts from a seventy year old hands-off policy to the advocacy of civil rights reform. This book further reveals how civil rights leaders utilized foreign policy issues and Cold War politics to press for domestic policy reforms in the United States.