Our Day: Race Relations and Public Accommodations in South Bend, Indiana

The first in the On Their Shoulders series of South Bend regional Civil Rights books, Our Day: Race Relations and Public Accommodations in South Bend, Indiana tells the story of the growing numbers of African Americans who arrived in the industrial city of South Bend after World War I hoping for a better life. O'Dell's prodigious research provides the foundation for a story of courage and persistence, as Black residents worked locally and, later, with their white allies within the context of the larger civil rights movement, to fulfill the promise of racial equality. One way of defining full membership in a democratic society is by access to facilities offered for "public" use. This study shows how people struggled for equality in a period beginning decades before the Brown decision in 1954.