Black Classes and the Masses

By the 1950s, North Smithfield had become the residential area of choice for a new generation of Black middle-class families despite terror bombings meant to scare them away. This generation of African American leaders included A. G. Gaston, whose businesses serving African Americans' funeral and financial needs made him the richest Black man in Birmingham, and Attorney Shores and other Black middle-class citizens who were active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which pushed for voting rights, better jobs, and more housing opportunities by filing lawsuits against unjust racial discrimination. Some working-class Blacks did not always feel their leaders worked in their best interests, and they grew increasingly impatient with the slow pace of integration, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down separate but equal schools in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Working-class Blacks increasingly rallied around race men such as Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth of Bethel Baptist Church and other outspoken leaders who demanded an immediate end to segregation and racial discrimination, making these figures the chief spokesmen for the Black working class rather than the traditional Black middle-class leadership.

Birmingham, Alabama · United States