Revival in The United States
Opposition to racism revived in the 1920s and 1930s. At that time, anthropologists such as Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, and Ashley Montagu argued for the equality of humans across races and cultures. Eleanor Roosevelt was a very visible advocate for minority rights during this period. Socialist organizations like the Industrial Workers of the World, which gained some popularity during the Great Depression, were explicitly egalitarian.
Beginning with the Harlem Renaissance and continuing into the 1960s, many African-American writers, including James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and James Baldwin argued forcefully against racism.
During the Civil Rights Movement, Jim Crow laws were repealed in the South and blacks finally re-won the right to vote in Southern states. U.S. Civil Rights movement leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an influential force, and his "I Have a Dream" speech is an exemplary condensation of his egalitarian ideology. His death inspired Jane Elliott, an American anti-racism activist and a teacher, to create her "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" exercise.
Read more about this topic: Antiracist
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—R.W. “Tiny” Rowland (b. 1917)
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—Rhonda Cornum, United States Army Major. As quoted in Newsweek magazine, “Perspectives” page (July 13, 1992)