Download Kansas in the 1940s-1950s - St. Agnes Catholic School

Kansas in the 1940s-1950s
World War II
• Before the U.S. entered the war, most Kansans
were isolationists (they didn’t want to get
involved)
• 215,000 Kansas men and women go on to
serve the military during WWII
Normandy
• On the beaches of Normandy, France, Kansan
Dwight Eisenhower helped defeat Germany
• He returned home to Kansas to an incredible
parade
• Italy, Germany, and Japan were defeated
Civil Rights in Kansas
• The Civil Rights movement had a great
foothold in the state of Kansas
• In 1896, the Plessy vs. Ferguson court case had
decided that separate but equal was fair
• The U.S. Supreme Court case Brown vs. Topeka
Board of Education ended segregation
Dockum Drug sit-in
• In Wichita, drug store owners would not serve
African Americans food
• In 1958, several well dressed African American
students staged a sit-in protest
• The owners eventually gave in because they
were losing too much business
Cold War
• When WWII ended only the U.S. and the
Soviet Union were left as superpowers
• Both sides had weapons of mass destruction,
but neither used them
• They backed opposing sides in conflicts
throughout the world