" Most blacks fully understood that "putting on the face" in the presence of whites was one of the many tactics they used to survive. .
The threat of physical pain, public humiliation, and death held Jim Crow system firmly in place. However, people did eventually begin to fight against the system. Immediate relief from this oppression was found in the flight of millions of African-Americans to the North, commonly known as The Great Migration. Much of the desire to flee the South and to resist segregation legally and politically resulted from the experience of African-American soldiers in World War I. African-American service-men were confronted with the realities of the military's own segregation despite their patriotic motives. A biographer in the documentary "Road to Brown," described the sentiment that ran through the ranks of black soldiers in that there was " No sense dying for a world run by them." Why should these men fight for a democracy that in theory treated them as equals but in reality oppressed their race? No true democracy would result until the rights of African-Americans were placed back into their own hands. This American dissention was especially dangerous and important because of its un-American stance. Young black soldiers home from Europe found Jim Crow Laws especially grueling. Similar patterns occurred after World War II, when over a million and a half African Americans left the South. During this time there was no longer room for the passive African Americans, willing to accept the white man's cruelty. These enlightened individuals fought harder than ever to seek the "democracy" that they fought for overseas, but were denied in their homeland. .
Efforts to disassemble the structure of Jim Crow Laws also began on a national level. Led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the labors of civil rights leaders and followers continued to grow.
