The black reformers who paved the road for the civil rights movement led by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. emerged during the Great Depression of the 1930s. In that economically troubled decade, African American labor leaders like A. Philip Randolph, organizer of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (a union composed of black railroad porters), became a tireless advocate of equal wages and job opportunities for black Americans. His appeal to President Franklin D. Roosevelt led to a presidential order banning job discrimination in defense industries.

During the 1930s the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), through its Legal Defense Fund, began to challenge in court school segregation laws. Spearheaded by Thurgood Marshall, this effort opened to black students the doors of the University of Maryland School of Law in 1936 and the University of Missouri School of Law in...