"The story of the modern civil rights movement typically begins in the South with the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955. But as Martha Biondi shows, a grassroots struggle against racial segregation and discrimination began over a decade earlier in New York City. This story is an essential first chapter in the history of the American civil rights movement. It also fills a critical gap in our understanding of the causes of the urban rebellions that erupted in the mid-1960s, just as the southern civil rights movement was achieving major victories." "Rather than integration, Black New Yorkers sought justice. Biondi reveals how movement leaders mobilized to make the war against fascism a launching pad for a postwar struggle against white supremacy, and organized to gain the fruits of first-class citizenship - good jobs, modern housing, higher education, Black representation in government, due process of law, and equal access to all places of public accomodation. This powerful push for social, economic, and political equality met fierce resistance from a range of people and institutions with deep investments in white privilege, from unions to realtors to politicians. Despite these obstacles, Black activists won the first law since Reconstruction barring discrimination in private employment, and several other landmark laws barring discrimination and segregation in education, housing, and public accomodations." "This burgeoning northern civil rights movement was dramatically disrupted by the anticommunist crusade, which silenced its more radical leaders and their demands. Nevertheless, as this book reveals, in the decade after World War II Black New Yorkers launched the modern civil rights struggle, and bequeathed a robust and expansive agenda that promoted the rights and dignity of the poor and disfranchised across the city, the nation, and the world."--Jacket.