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Challenging "second-class citizenship"
The aftermath of World War II awakened an old strain of self-questioning in the United States. After 1945, groups of American citizens, notably African Americans, young people and women of all backgrounds, began to challenge their second-class citizenship by insisting that if the United States claimed to represent freedom to others, the nation had to keep its promises to its own people. Through the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Rights Movement, these grassroots activists took the lead in defining the meaning of "American", often by openly opposing official policy. The nation’s leaders found themselves scrambling to keep up with the demands of large numbers of the American public.
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