In November 1920 Secretary of War Newton D. Baker signed prison-release authorizations for thirty-three conscientious objectors who had refused to comply with conscription or to give alternative service during World War I. They based their stand on their Christian conviction that cooperation with any war effort and its destruction of life was wrong. Their release triggered loud protests from the American Legion and other patriotic groups.

In June 1929 Reverend William St. John Blackshear, the Texas-born rector of St. Matthew's Protestant Episcopal Church in Brooklyn, read a statement in which he noted that there were Episcopal churches for African Americans nearby and that therefore he discouraged "members of that race" from attending his church. The five African American members of St. Matthews were deeply upset, and several stopped attending the church. When the incident attracted protests from the National Association for the Advancement of...