126-486: Entertaining Comics, commonly known as EC Comics , was a major publisher of comic books in the 1940s and 1950s. The letters EC originally stood for Educational Comics. EC's Pre-Trend titles are those published by Max Gaines and his son William M. Gaines , who took over the family business after his father's death in 1947. In 1950, with the addition of writer and artist Al Feldstein , EC found success with their New Trend line, including their horror titles Tales From
252-411: A " film noir -ish bag of effects" in his visuals, while characters and themes found in the crime stories often showed the strong influence of writers associated with film noir , notably James M. Cain . Craig excelled in drawing stories of domestic scheming and conflict, leading David Hajdu to observe: To young people of the postwar years, when the mainstream culture glorified suburban domesticity as
378-539: A 14-year-old African American from Chicago, visited his relatives in Money, Mississippi , for the summer. He allegedly had an interaction with a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in a small grocery store that violated the norms of Mississippi culture, and Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J. W. Milam brutally murdered young Emmett Till. They beat and mutilated him before shooting him in the head and sinking his body in the Tallahatchie River . Three days later, Till's body
504-473: A backlash for his involvement with white actress Kim Novak . Davis briefly married a black dancer in 1958 to protect himself from mob violence. In 1958, officers in Virginia entered the home of Mildred and Richard Loving and dragged them out of bed for living together as an interracial couple, on the basis that "any white person intermarry with a colored person"— or vice versa—each party "shall be guilty of
630-605: A bus boycott was considered and rejected. But when Rosa Parks was arrested in December, Jo Ann Gibson Robinson of the Montgomery Women's Political Council put the bus boycott protest in motion. Late that night, she, John Cannon (chairman of the Business Department at Alabama State University ) and others mimeographed and distributed thousands of leaflets calling for a boycott. The eventual success of
756-828: A century, due to reprints that have kept them in the public eye. In 1964–1966, Ballantine Books published five black-and-white paperbacks of EC stories: Tales of the Incredible showcased EC science fiction, while the paperbacks Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror reprinted EC horror tales. EC's Ray Bradbury adaptations were collected in The Autumn People (horror and crime) and Tomorrow Midnight (science fiction). The EC Horror Library (Nostalgia Press, 1971) featured 23 EC stories selected by Bhob Stewart and Bill Gaines, with an introduction by Stewart and an essay by theater critic Larry Stark . One of
882-648: A chemistry teacher. He never taught but instead took over the family business. In 1949 and 1950, Bill Gaines began a line of new titles featuring horror , suspense , science fiction , military fiction and crime fiction . His editors, Al Feldstein and Harvey Kurtzman , who also drew covers and stories, gave assignments to such prominent and highly accomplished freelance artists as Johnny Craig , Reed Crandall , Jack Davis , Will Elder , George Evans , Frank Frazetta , Graham Ingels , Jack Kamen , Bernard Krigstein , Joe Orlando , John Severin , Al Williamson , Basil Wolverton , and Wally Wood . With input from Gaines,
1008-473: A combined strategy of direct action , nonviolence , nonviolent resistance , and many events described as civil disobedience , giving rise to the civil rights movement of 1954 to 1968. A. Philip Randolph had planned a march on Washington, D.C., in 1941 to support demands for elimination of employment discrimination in the defense industry ; he called off the march when the Roosevelt administration met
1134-488: A felony" and face prison terms of five years. Invigorated by the victory of Brown and frustrated by the lack of immediate practical effect, private citizens increasingly rejected gradualist, legalistic approaches as the primary tool to bring about desegregation . They were faced with " massive resistance " in the South by proponents of racial segregation and voter suppression . In defiance, African-American activists adopted
1260-717: A financial scandal involving price fixing in its parking operations, Kinney Services spun off its non-entertainment assets as National Kinney Corporation in September 1971, and it changed names to Warner Communications on February 10, 1972. The Tales from the Crypt title was licensed for a movie of that name in 1972. This was followed by another film, The Vault of Horror , in 1973. The omnibus movies Creepshow (1982) and Creepshow 2 , while using original scripts written by Stephen King and George A. Romero , were inspired by EC's horror comics. Creepshow 2 included animated interstitial material between vignettes, featuring
1386-635: A march from Selma to Montgomery . The movement was led by Martin Luther King Jr. , James Bevel , and others, and press coverage of police violence using fire hoses and dogs against students attempting to walk to City Hall to talk with the mayor during the Birmingham campaign increased its public support. Discrimination was often supported by courts, including by the Supreme Court in its 1896 decision Plessy v. Ferguson , which upheld
SECTION 10
#17327910103241512-667: A meeting of his fellow publishers and suggested that the comic book industry gather to fight outside censorship and help repair the industry's damaged reputation. They formed the Comics Magazine Association of America and its Comics Code Authority . The CCA code expanded on the ACMP's restrictions. Unlike its predecessor, the CCA code was rigorously enforced, with all comics requiring code approval before their publication. This not being what Gaines intended, he refused to join
1638-578: A neighborhood a character or property or occupancy, members of any race or nationality, or any individual whose presence will be clearly detrimental to property values in a neighborhood." The result was the development of all-black ghettos in the North and West, where much housing was older, as well as South. The first anti-miscegenation law was passed by the Maryland General Assembly in 1691, criminalizing interracial marriage . In
1764-571: A network of chapters as the NAACP did. It offered training and leadership assistance for local efforts to fight segregation. The headquarters organization raised funds, mostly from Northern sources, to support such campaigns. It made nonviolence both its central tenet and its primary method of confronting racism. In 1959, Septima Clarke , Bernice Robinson, and Esau Jenkins , with the help of Myles Horton 's Highlander Folk School in Tennessee , began
1890-465: A plethora of aspects of life. Within employment, economic opportunities for blacks were routed to the lowest status and restrictive in potential mobility. Within the housing market, stronger discriminatory measures were used in correlation to the influx, resulting in a mix of "targeted violence, restrictive covenants , redlining and racial steering ". The Great Migration resulted in many African Americans becoming urbanized, and they began to realign from
2016-563: A reprint series called The EC Artists' Library featuring the comics published by EC, releasing each book by artist. This collection is printed in black and white . In 2013, Dark Horse Comics began reprinting the EC Archives in hardcover volumes, picking up where Gemstone left off, and using the same hardcover full-color format. The first volume to be reprinted was Tales From the Crypt : Volume 4 , with an essay by Cochran. In February 2024, Oni Press announced that it will revive
2142-449: A series of Artist's Editions books in 15" × 22" format, which consist of scans of the original inked comic book art, including pasted lettering and other editorial artifacts that remain on the original pages. Subsequent EC books in the series included a collection of Wally Wood 's EC comic stories, a collection of stories from Mad , and books collecting the work of Jack Davis and Graham Ingels . In 2012, Fantagraphics Books began
2268-553: A series of artist- and theme-based collections of EC stories titled The EC Artists' Library . The full-color EC Archives project was taken up by Dark Horse Comics in 2013, both reprinting previous Gladstone and Gemstone volumes and producing new volumes collecting further EC Comics titles. EC Comics E.C. Publications, Inc. , ( doing business as EC Comics ) is an American comic book publisher . It specialized in horror fiction , crime fiction , satire , military fiction , dark fantasy , and science fiction from
2394-613: A sister title, Panic , edited by Al Feldstein and using the regular Mad artists plus Joe Orlando . EC shifted its focus to a line of more realistic comic book titles, including M.D. and Psychoanalysis (known as the New Direction line). It also renamed its remaining science-fiction comic. Since the initial issues did not carry the Comics Code seal, the wholesalers refused to carry them. After consulting with his staff, Gaines reluctantly started submitting his comics to
2520-589: A speech in Charleston, Illinois in 1858, Abraham Lincoln stated, "I am not, nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people". By the late 1800s, 38 US states had anti-miscegenation statutes. By 1924, the ban on interracial marriage was still in force in 29 states. While interracial marriage had been legal in California since 1948, in 1957 actor Sammy Davis Jr. faced
2646-424: A story. At EC's peak, Feldstein edited seven titles while Kurtzman handled three. Artists were assigned stories specific to their styles; for example, Davis and Ingels often drew gruesome, supernatural-themed stories, while Kamen and Evans did tamer material. With hundreds of stories written, common themes surfaced. Some of EC's more well-known themes include: The three horror titles featured stories introduced by
SECTION 20
#17327910103242772-495: A trio of horror hosts : The Crypt Keeper introduced Tales from the Crypt ; The Vault-Keeper welcomed readers to The Vault of Horror ; and the Old Witch cackled over The Haunt of Fear . Besides gleefully recounting the unpleasant details of the stories, the characters squabbled with one another, unleashed an arsenal of puns, and even insulted and taunted the readers: "Greetings, boils and ghouls..." This irreverent mockery of
2898-505: A watershed historical moment without Mamie finding the strength to make her private grief a public matter." The visceral response to his mother's decision to have an open-casket funeral mobilized the black community throughout the U.S. The murder and resulting trial ended up markedly impacting the views of several young black activists. Joyce Ladner referred to such activists as the "Emmett Till generation." One hundred days after Emmett Till's murder, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on
3024-470: A young protagonist who goes to great length to acquire and keep possession of an issue of the comic book Creepshow . In 1989, Tales from the Crypt began airing on the U.S. cable-TV network HBO . The series ran through 1996, comprising 93 episodes and seven seasons. Tales from the Crypt spawned two children's television series on broadcast TV , Tales from the Cryptkeeper and Secrets of
3150-497: The 15th Amendment (1870) that gave black males the right to vote (only males could vote in the U.S. at the time). From 1865 to 1877, the United States underwent a turbulent Reconstruction era during which the federal government tried to establish free labor and the civil rights of freedmen in the South after the end of slavery. Many whites resisted the social changes, leading to the formation of insurgent movements such as
3276-709: The American Civil War , eight serving presidents had owned slaves , almost four million black people remained enslaved in the South , generally only white men with property could vote, and the Naturalization Act of 1790 limited U.S. citizenship to whites . Following the Civil War, three constitutional amendments were passed, including the 13th Amendment (1865) that ended slavery; the 14th Amendment (1869) that gave black people citizenship, adding their total for Congressional apportionment ; and
3402-476: The Civil Rights Movement and the dawn of the 1960s counterculture . In 1954–55, censorship pressures prompted it to concentrate on the humor magazine Mad , leading to the company's greatest and most enduring success. Consequently, by 1956, the company ceased publishing all its comic lines except Mad . The firm, first known as Educational Comics, was founded by Max Gaines , former editor of
3528-803: The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), whose members attacked black and white Republicans in order to maintain white supremacy . In 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant , the U.S. Army, and U.S. Attorney General Amos T. Akerman , initiated a campaign to repress the KKK under the Enforcement Acts . Some states were reluctant to enforce the federal measures of the act. In addition, by the early 1870s, other white supremacist and insurgent paramilitary groups arose that violently opposed African-American legal equality and suffrage, intimidating and suppressing black voters, and assassinating Republican officeholders. However, if
3654-827: The March on Washington in 1963, moderates in the movement worked with the United States Congress to achieve the passage of several significant pieces of federal legislation that authorized oversight and enforcement of civil rights laws. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned all discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin, including in schools, employment, and public accommodations . The Voting Rights Act of 1965 restored and protected voting rights for minorities and authorized oversight of registration and elections in areas with historic under-representation of minority voters. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 forbade property owners from discriminating in
3780-655: The Tuskegee Institute , to dine at the White House , making him the first African American to attend an official dinner there. "The invitation was roundly criticized by southern politicians and newspapers." Washington persuaded the president to appoint more blacks to federal posts in the South and to try to boost African-American leadership in state Republican organizations. However, these actions were resisted by both white Democrats and white Republicans as an unwanted federal intrusion into state politics. During
3906-545: The civil rights of all Americans. After the American Civil War and subsequent abolition of slavery in the southern states in 1865, the three Reconstruction Amendments to the United States Constitution had granted emancipation and constitutional rights of citizenship to all African Americans, the majority of whom had recently been enslaved. For a short period of time, African-American men voted and held political office, but as time went on Blacks in
List of EC Comics publications - Misplaced Pages Continue
4032-751: The 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series. Initially, EC was founded as Educational Comics by Maxwell Gaines and specialized in educational and child-oriented stories. After Max Gaines died in a boating accident in 1947, his son William Gaines took over the company and renamed it Entertaining Comics . He printed more mature stories, delving into horror, war, fantasy, science-fiction, adventure, and other genres. Noted for their high quality and shock endings, these stories were also unique in their socially conscious, progressive themes (including racial equality , anti-war advocacy , nuclear disarmament , and environmentalism ) that anticipated
4158-425: The 1950s and 1960s, the nonviolent protesting of the civil rights movement caused definite tension, which gained national attention. In order to prepare for protests physically and psychologically, demonstrators received training in nonviolence. According to former civil rights activist Bruce Hartford, there are two main components of nonviolence training. There is the philosophical method, which involves understanding
4284-525: The ACMP seals placed on comics were meaningless. In 1954, the publication of Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent and a highly publicized Congressional hearing on juvenile delinquency cast comic books in an especially poor light. At the same time, a federal investigation led to a shakeup in the distribution companies that delivered comic books and pulp magazines across America. Sales plummeted, and several companies went out of business. Gaines called
4410-514: The American way of life. EC always claimed to be "proudest of our science fiction titles", with Weird Science and Weird Fantasy publishing stories unlike the space opera found in such titles as Fiction House 's Planet Comics . Crime SuspenStories had many parallels with film noir . As noted by Max Allan Collins in his story annotations for Russ Cochran 's 1983 hardcover reprint of Crime SuspenStories , Johnny Craig had developed
4536-653: The Comics Code Administrator, with a lawsuit when Murphy ordered EC to alter the science-fiction story "Judgment Day", in Incredible Science Fiction #33 (February 1956). The story, by the writer Al Feldstein and artist Joe Orlando , was a reprint from the pre-Code Weird Fantasy #18 (April 1953), inserted when the Code Authority had rejected an initial, original story, "An Eye for an Eye", drawn by Angelo Torres, but
4662-402: The Comics Code. East Coast Comix reprinted several of EC's New Trend comics in comic form between 1973 and 1975. The first reprint was the final issue of Tales from the Crypt , with the title revised to state The Crypt of Terror . This issue was originally meant to be the first issue of a fourth horror comic which was changed to the final issue of Tales from the Crypt at the last minute when
4788-483: The Comics Code; all the New Direction titles carried the seal starting with the second issue. This attempted revamp failed commercially and after the fifth issue, all the New Direction titles were canceled. Incredible Science Fiction #33 was the last EC comic book published. Gaines switched focus to EC's Picto-Fiction titles, a line of typeset black-and-white magazines with heavily illustrated stories. Fiction
4914-405: The Crypt , The Haunt of Fear and The Vault of Horror . A line of science fiction titles soon followed, Weird Science and Weird Fantasy , illustrated by the best artists in the business, such as Wallace Wood , Reed Crandall , Johnny Craig , George Evans , Graham Ingels , Jack Davis , Bill Elder , Joe Orlando , Al Williamson and Frank Frazetta . In addition to original stories,
5040-454: The Crypt , The Vault of Horror , and The Haunt of Fear . These titles reveled in a gruesome joie de vivre , with grimly ironic fates meted out to many of the stories' protagonists. The company's war comics, Frontline Combat and Two-Fisted Tales , often featured weary-eyed, unheroic stories out of step with the jingoistic times. Shock SuspenStories tackled weighty political and social issues such as racism , sex , drug use , and
5166-484: The Cryptkeeper's Haunted House . It also spawned three "Tales from the Crypt"-branded movies, Demon Knight , Bordello of Blood , and Ritual . In 1997, HBO followed the TV series with the similar Perversions of Science (comprising 10 episodes), the episodes of which were based on stories from EC's Weird Science . Although the last non- Mad EC publication came out in 1956, EC Comics have remained popular for half
List of EC Comics publications - Misplaced Pages Continue
5292-705: The Galactic Republic should not admit the planet until these problems are resolved. In the final panel, he removes his helmet, revealing he is a Black man. Murphy demanded, without any authority in the Code, that the Black astronaut had to be removed. As Diehl recounted in Tales from the Crypt: The Official Archives : This really made 'em go bananas in the Code czar's office. "Judge Murphy
5418-707: The Montgomery Improvement Association, joined with other church leaders who had led similar boycott efforts, such as C. K. Steele of Tallahassee and T. J. Jemison of Baton Rouge, and other activists such as Fred Shuttlesworth , Ella Baker , A. Philip Randolph , Bayard Rustin and Stanley Levison , to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The SCLC, with its headquarters in Atlanta , Georgia , did not attempt to create
5544-516: The Montgomery bus boycott to demand a bus system in which passengers would be treated equally. The organization was led by Jo Ann Robinson, a member of the Women's Political Council who had been waiting for the opportunity to boycott the bus system. Following Rosa Parks' arrest, Jo Ann Robinson mimeographed 52,500 leaflets calling for a boycott. They were distributed around the city and helped gather
5670-439: The NAACP and the national civil rights movement obtained federal court orders to integrate the prestigious Little Rock Central High School in September, 1957. The Nine faced intense harassment and threats of violence from white parents and students, as well as organized white supremacy groups. The enraged opposition emphasized miscegenation as the threat to white society. Arkansas Governor , Orval Faubus , claiming his only goal
5796-528: The Nine were teased and ridiculed every day. In the city compromise efforts all failed and political tensions continued to fester. A year later in September 1958 the Supreme Court ruled that all the city's high schools had to be integrated immediately. Governor Faubus and the legislature responded by immediately shutting down all the public high schools in the city for the entire 1958–1959 school year, despite
5922-662: The Nursery" (in Collier's ) and "The Psychopathology of Comic Books" (in the American Journal of Psychotherapy ). As a result, an industry trade group , the Association of Comics Magazine Publishers , was formed in 1948 but proved ineffective. EC left the association in 1950 after Gaines argued with its executive director, Henry Schultz. By 1954 only three comic publishers were still members, and Schultz admitted that
6048-647: The RCNL, Howard led campaigns to expose brutality by the Mississippi state highway patrol and to encourage blacks to make deposits in the black-owned Tri-State Bank of Nashville which, in turn, gave loans to civil rights activists who were victims of a "credit squeeze" by the White Citizens' Councils . After Claudette Colvin was arrested for not giving up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in March 1955,
6174-855: The Republican to the Democratic Party, especially because of opportunities under the New Deal of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Substantially under pressure from African-American supporters who began the March on Washington Movement , President Roosevelt issued the first federal order banning discrimination and created the Fair Employment Practice Committee . After both World Wars, black veterans of
6300-503: The South were increasingly deprived of civil rights, often under racist Jim Crow laws , and were subjected to discrimination and sustained violence by White supremacists . African Americans who moved to the North to enhance their prospects in the Great Migration also faced barriers in employment and housing. Over the following century, various efforts were made by African Americans to secure their legal and civil rights, such as
6426-430: The South." From 1910 to 1970, blacks sought better lives by migrating north and west out of the South. A total of nearly seven million blacks left the South in what was known as the Great Migration , most during and after World War II. So many people migrated that the demographics of some previously black-majority states changed to a white majority (in combination with other developments). The rapid influx of blacks altered
SECTION 50
#17327910103246552-467: The annual Hampton Negro Conference in Virginia, said that "...the lines along most of the avenues of wage-earning are more rigidly drawn in the North than in the South. There seems to be an apparent effort throughout the North, especially in the cities to debar the colored worker from all the avenues of higher remunerative labor, which makes it more difficult to improve his economic condition even than in
6678-791: The appointment of African American David Jones to the school board in 1953, convinced numerous white and black citizens that Greensboro was heading in a progressive direction. Integration in Greensboro occurred rather peacefully compared to the process in Southern states such as Alabama, Arkansas , and Virginia where " massive resistance " was practiced by top officials and throughout the states. In Virginia, some counties closed their public schools rather than integrate, and many white Christian private schools were founded to accommodate students who used to go to public schools. Even in Greensboro, much local resistance to desegregation continued, and in 1969,
6804-581: The association. Among the Code's new rules were that no comic book title could use the words "horror" or "terror" or "weird" on its cover. When distributors refused to handle many of his comics, Gaines ended publication of his three horror and the two SuspenStory titles on September 14, 1954. Gaines waged several battles with the Comics Code Authority to keep his magazines free from censorship. In one particular example noted by comics historian Digby Diehl, Gaines threatened Judge Charles Murphy,
6930-431: The attention of civil rights leaders. After the city rejected many of its suggested reforms, the NAACP, led by E. D. Nixon , pushed for full desegregation of public buses. With the support of most of Montgomery's 50,000 African Americans, the boycott lasted for 381 days, until the local ordinance segregating African Americans and whites on public buses was repealed. Ninety percent of African Americans in Montgomery partook in
7056-478: The audience also became the trademark attitude of Mad , and such glib give-and-take was later mimicked by many, including Stan Lee at Marvel Comics . EC's most enduring legacy came with Mad , which started as a side project for Kurtzman before buoying the company's fortunes and becoming one of the country's most notable and long-running humor publications. When satire became an industry rage in 1954, and other publishers created imitations of Mad , EC introduced
7182-918: The books also featured adaptations of Ray Bradbury 's short stories. The New Direction group was a response to the Comics Code Authority . Picto-Fiction was a short-lived line of heavily illustrated short story magazines. Beginning in 1958, EC published annual and special editions of Mad . Many of these titles were reprinted during the past 30 years by publisher Russ Cochran , both independently and in conjunction with Gladstone Publishing and later with Gemstone Publishing . Russ Cochran's reprints include The Complete EC Library in black and white but with full-color covers; EC Annuals in full-color, comic-book sized reprints with four to six complete comics in each Annual ; and EC Archives , full-color hardcover books containing six complete EC comics. In 2012 Fantagraphics Books began publishing
7308-467: The boycott made its spokesman Martin Luther King Jr. , a nationally known figure. It also inspired other bus boycotts, such as the successful Tallahassee, Florida boycott of 1956–57. This movement also sparked the 1956 Sugar Bowl riots in Atlanta which later became a major organizing center of the civil rights movement, with Martin Luther King Jr. In 1957, King and Ralph Abernathy , the leaders of
7434-550: The boycotts, which reduced bus revenue significantly, as they comprised the majority of the riders. This movement also sparked riots leading up to the 1956 Sugar Bowl . In November 1956, the United States Supreme Court upheld a district court ruling in the case of Browder v. Gayle and ordered Montgomery's buses desegregated, ending the boycott. Local leaders established the Montgomery Improvement Association to focus their efforts. Martin Luther King Jr.
7560-501: The brand, starting with horror title Epitaphs from the Abyss and the science fiction title Cruel Universe . The Gaines family licenses the titles. Beginning in the late 1940s, the comic book industry became the target of mounting public criticism for the content of comic books and their potentially harmful effects on children. The problem came to a head in 1948 with the publication by Dr. Fredric Wertham of two articles: "Horror in
7686-399: The bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Parks later informed Till's mother that her decision to stay in her seat was guided by the image she still vividly recalled of Till's brutalized remains. The glass topped casket that was used for Till's Chicago funeral was found in a cemetery garage in 2009. Till had been reburied in a different casket after being exhumed in 2005. Till's family decided to donate
SECTION 60
#17327910103247812-457: The case known as Brown II , the Court ordered segregation to be phased out over time, "with all deliberate speed". Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954) did not overturn Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). Plessy v. Ferguson was segregation in transportation modes. Brown v. Board of Education dealt with segregation in education. Brown v. Board of Education did set in motion
7938-506: The city of Anniston, Alabama , two black ministers were brutally beaten for attempting to integrate the public library. Though there was resistance and violence, the integration of libraries was generally quicker than the integration of other public institutions. The situation for blacks outside the South was somewhat better (in most states they could vote and have their children educated, though they still faced discrimination in housing and jobs). In 1900 Reverend Matthew Anderson, speaking at
8064-775: The civil rights movement's peak in the mid-1960s, and still faced discrimination in jobs, housing, education and politics. A wave of riots and protests in Black communities in the 1960s, including in Los Angeles in 1965 , in Newark in 1967 , and in Chicago in 1968 following King's assassination lessened support from the White middle class. By the early 21st century, though " affirmative action " programs had expanded opportunities for Black and other minorities, Black income levels and life expectancy remained lower than that of Whites. Before
8190-580: The civil rights movements of 1865–1896 and of 1896–1954 . The movement was characterized by nonviolent mass protests and civil disobedience following highly publicized events such as the lynching of Emmett Till in 1955. These included economic boycotts such as the Montgomery bus boycott , " sit-ins " in Greensboro and Nashville , a series of protests during the Birmingham campaign , and
8316-677: The comic-book company All-American Publications , and it was initially a shell company of All-American. When that company merged with DC Comics in June 1945, Gaines retained rights to the comic book Picture Stories from the Bible , and began his new company using the EC name with a plan to market comics about science, history, and the Bible to schools and churches, and soon expanded to produce children's humor titles. A decade earlier, Max Gaines had been one of
8442-659: The company in the 1960s as E.C. Publications, Inc., and was eventually absorbed into the same corporation that later purchased National Periodical Publications (later known as DC Comics ). During the 1960s, Gaines granted Bob Barrett, Roger Hill, and Jerry Norton Weist (1949–2011), the co-founder of Million Year Picnic , permission to produce a EC Comics fanzine "Squa Tront" (1967 - 1983) that would last for several years. In June 1967, Kinney National Company (it formed on August 12, 1966, after Kinney Parking/National Cleaning merge) bought National Periodical and E.C., then it purchased Warner Bros.-Seven Arts in early 1969. Due to
8568-498: The company published one-page biographies of them in comic books. This was in contrast to the industry's common practice, in which credits were often missing, although some artists at other companies, such as the Jack Kirby – Joe Simon team, Jack Cole and Bob Kane had been prominently promoted. EC published distinct lines of titles under its Entertaining Comics umbrella. Most notorious were its horror books, Tales from
8694-622: The constitutionality of those state laws that required racial segregation in public facilities in its 1896 decision Plessy v. Ferguson , legitimizing them through the " separate but equal " doctrine. Segregation, which began with slavery, continued with Jim Crow laws, with signs used to show blacks where they could legally walk, talk, drink, rest, or eat. For those places that were racially mixed, non-whites had to wait until all white customers were served first. Elected in 1912, President Woodrow Wilson gave in to demands by Southern members of his cabinet and ordered segregation of workplaces throughout
8820-528: The country, which was most commonly employed against African Americans . The movement had origins in the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century, and had modern roots in the 1940s. After years of direct actions and grassroots protests, the movement made its largest legislative and judicial gains during the 1960s. The movement's major nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience campaigns eventually secured new protections in federal law for
8946-517: The court majority opinion that Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group. The lawyers from the NAACP had to gather plausible evidence in order to win the case of Brown vs. Board of Education . Their method of addressing
9072-719: The demand by issuing Executive Order 8802 , which barred racial discrimination and created an agency to oversee compliance with the order. The strategy of public education, legislative lobbying, and litigation that had typified the civil rights movement during the first half of the 20th century broadened after Brown to a strategy that emphasized " direct action ": boycotts, sit-ins , Freedom Rides , marches or walks, and similar tactics that relied on mass mobilization, nonviolent resistance, standing in line, and, at times, civil disobedience. Churches, local grassroots organizations, fraternal societies, and black-owned businesses mobilized volunteers to participate in broad-based actions. This
9198-462: The demographics of Northern and Western cities; happening at a period of expanded European, Hispanic, and Asian immigration, it added to social competition and tensions, with the new migrants and immigrants battling for a place in jobs and housing. Reflecting social tensions after World War I, as veterans struggled to return to the workforce and labor unions were organizing, the Red Summer of 1919
9324-590: The doctrine of separate but equal . At the culmination of a legal strategy pursued by African Americans, in 1954 the Supreme Court struck down the underpinnings of laws that allowed racial discrimination as unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education . The Warren Court made further pro-civil rights rulings in cases such as Browder v. Gayle (1956) and Loving v. Virginia (1967), banning segregation in public schools and public transport, and striking down all state laws against interracial marriage . Following
9450-579: The entire process of developing and training the mental, physical and moral powers and capabilities of human beings". Risa Goluboff wrote that the NAACP's intention was to show the Courts that African American children were the victims of school segregation and their futures were at risk. The Court ruled that both Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which had established the "separate but equal" standard in general, and Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education (1899), which had applied that standard to schools,
9576-402: The federal government found the city was not in compliance with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Transition to a fully integrated school system did not begin until 1971. Many Northern cities also had de facto segregation policies, which resulted in a vast gulf in educational resources between black and white communities. In Harlem , New York, for example, neither a single new school was built since
9702-552: The federal government. The early 20th century is a period often referred to as the " nadir of American race relations ", when the number of lynchings was highest. While tensions and civil rights violations were most intense in the South, social discrimination affected African Americans in other regions as well. At the national level, the Southern bloc controlled important committees in Congress, defeated passage of federal laws against lynching, and exercised considerable power beyond
9828-521: The first Citizenship Schools in South Carolina 's Sea Islands . They taught literacy to enable blacks to pass voting tests. The program was an enormous success and tripled the number of black voters on Johns Island . SCLC took over the program and duplicated its results elsewhere. In the spring of 1951, black students in Virginia protested their unequal status in the state's segregated educational system. Students at Moton High School protested
9954-419: The first books to reprint comic book stories in color throughout, it followed the original color guides by Marie Severin . In addition to the stories from EC's horror titles, the book also included Bernard Krigstein 's famous "Master Race" story from Impact and the first publication of Angelo Torres ' "An Eye for an Eye", originally slated for the final issue of Incredible Science Fiction but rejected by
10080-612: The funeral in Jet is credited as a crucial moment in the civil rights era for displaying in vivid detail the violent racism that was being directed at black people in America. In a column for The Atlantic , Vann R. Newkirk wrote: "The trial of his killers became a pageant illuminating the tyranny of white supremacy ". The state of Mississippi tried two defendants, but they were speedily acquitted by an all-white jury . "Emmett's murder," historian Tim Tyson writes, "would never have become
10206-473: The future overturning of 'separate but equal'. On May 18, 1954, Greensboro, North Carolina , became the first city in the South to publicly announce that it would abide by the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education ruling. "It is unthinkable,' remarked School Board Superintendent Benjamin Smith, 'that we will try to [override] the laws of the United States." This positive reception for Brown, together with
10332-401: The harm it did to all the students. The decision to integrate the school was a landmark event in the civil rights movement, and the students' bravery and determination in the face of violent opposition is remembered as a key moment in American history. The city and state were entangled in very expensive legal disputes for decades, while suffering a reputation for hatred and obstruction. During
10458-496: The horror comics were cancelled in 1954. A dozen issues ended up being reprinted. Russ Cochran reprints include EC Portfolios , The Complete EC Library , EC Classics , RCP Reprints (Russ Cochran) , EC Annuals , and EC Archives (hardcover books). The EC full-color hardcovers were under the Gemstone imprint. Dark Horse continued this series in the same format. In February 2010, IDW Publishing began publishing
10584-427: The individual person's attitude and mental response to crises and violence" (Civil Rights Movement Archive). Hartford and activists like him, who trained in tactical nonviolence, considered it necessary in order to ensure physical safety, instill discipline, teach demonstrators how to demonstrate, and form mutual confidence among demonstrators (Civil Rights Movement Archive). For many, the concept of nonviolent protest
10710-426: The issue of school segregation was to enumerate several arguments. One pertained to having exposure to interracial contact in a school environment. It was argued that interracial contact would, in turn, help prepare children to live with the pressures that society exerts in regard to race and thereby afford them a better chance of living in a democracy. In addition, another argument emphasized how "'education' comprehends
10836-460: The landmark Supreme Court case of Smith v. Allwright (1944), which prohibited white primaries , progress was made in increasing black political participation in the Rim South and Acadiana – although almost entirely in urban areas and a few rural localities where most blacks worked outside plantations. The status quo ante of excluding African Americans from the political system lasted in
10962-441: The last African Americans were elected to Congress from the South before disenfranchisement of blacks by states throughout the region, as described below. From 1890 to 1908, southern states passed new constitutions and laws to disenfranchise African Americans and many Poor Whites by creating barriers to voter registration; voting rolls were dramatically reduced as blacks and poor whites were forced out of electoral politics. After
11088-491: The leadership of Walter Reuther , the United Auto Workers donated $ 75,000 to help pay for the NAACP's efforts at the Supreme Court. On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren ruled unanimously in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas , that mandating, or even permitting, public schools to be segregated by race was unconstitutional . Chief Justice Warren wrote in
11214-419: The method of nonviolence and why it is considered useful, and there is the tactical method, which ultimately teaches demonstrators "how to be a protestor—how to sit-in, how to picket, how to defend yourself against attack, giving training on how to remain cool when people are screaming racist insults into your face and pouring stuff on you and hitting you" (Civil Rights Movement Archive). The philosophical basis of
11340-473: The military pressed for full civil rights and often led activist movements. In 1948, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981 , which ended segregation in the military . Housing segregation became a nationwide problem following the Great Migration of black people out of the South. Racial covenants were employed by many real estate developers to "protect" entire subdivisions , with
11466-765: The modern American ideal – the life that made the Cold War worth fighting – nothing else in the panels of EC comics, not the giant alien cockroach that ate earthlings, not the baseball game played with human body parts, was so subversive as the idea that the exits of the Long Island Expressway emptied onto levels of Hell. Superior illustrations of stories with surprise endings became EC's trademark. Gaines would generally stay up late and read large amounts of material while seeking "springboards" for story concepts. The next day he would present each premise until Feldstein found one that he thought he could develop into
11592-531: The number of whites in the South. Characteristics of the post-Reconstruction period: African Americans and other ethnic minorities rejected this regime. They resisted it in numerous ways and sought better opportunities through lawsuits, new organizations, political redress, and labor organizing (see the Civil rights movement (1896–1954) ). The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
11718-470: The original casket to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American Culture and History, where it is now on display. In 2007, Bryant said that she had fabricated the most sensational part of her story in 1955. On December 1, 1955, nine months after a 15-year-old high school student, Claudette Colvin , refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and
11844-505: The overcrowded conditions and failing facility. Some local leaders of the NAACP had tried to persuade the students to back down from their protest against the Jim Crow laws of school segregation. When the students did not budge, the NAACP joined their battle against school segregation. The NAACP proceeded with five cases challenging the school systems; these were later combined under what is known today as Brown v. Board of Education . Under
11970-550: The pioneers of the comic book form, with Eastern Color Printing 's proto-comic book Funnies on Parade , and with Dell Publishing 's Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics , considered by historians the first true American comic book . When Max Gaines died in 1947 in a boating accident, his son William inherited the comics company. After four years (1942–1946) in the Army Air Corps , Gaines had returned home to finish school at New York University , planning to work as
12096-501: The practice of nonviolence in the American civil rights movement was largely inspired by Mahatma Gandhi 's "non-cooperation" policies during his involvement in the Indian independence movement , which were intended to gain attention so that the public would either "intervene in advance" or "provide public pressure in support of the action to be taken" (Erikson, 415). As Hartford explains it, philosophical nonviolence training aims to "shape
12222-445: The pressure of the lawsuit with a school boycott in 1959. During the boycott, some of the first freedom schools of the period were established. The city responded to the campaign by permitting more open transfers to high-quality, historically white schools. (New York's African-American community, and Northern desegregation activists generally, now found themselves contending with the problem of white flight , however.) Emmett Till ,
12348-446: The primary intent to keep " white " neighborhoods "white". Ninety percent of the housing projects built in the years following World War II were racially restricted by such covenants. Cities known for their widespread use of racial covenants include Chicago , Baltimore , Detroit , Milwaukee , Los Angeles , Seattle , and St. Louis . Said premises shall not be rented, leased, or conveyed to, or occupied by, any person other than of
12474-475: The remainder of the South, especially North Louisiana , Mississippi and Alabama, until national civil rights legislation was passed in the mid-1960s to provide federal enforcement of constitutional voting rights. For more than sixty years, blacks in the South were essentially excluded from politics, unable to elect anyone to represent their interests in Congress or local government. Since they could not vote, they could not serve on local juries. During this period,
12600-633: The rental or sale of housing. African Americans re-entered politics in the South, and the Black Power movement emerged, which criticized leaders of the existing movement for their cooperative attitude and adherence to legalism and nonviolence . Black Power leaders, including within the Black Panther Party , demanded not only legal equality, but also economic self-sufficiency for the community. Support for Black Power came from African Americans who had seen little material improvement since
12726-455: The results of his audience with the czar to Gaines, who was furious [and] immediately picked up the phone and called Murphy. "This is ridiculous!" he bellowed. "I'm going to call a press conference on this. You have no grounds, no basis, to do this. I'll sue you". Murphy made what he surely thought was a gracious concession. "All right. Just take off the beads of sweat". At that, Gaines and Feldstein both went ballistic. "Fuck you!" they shouted into
12852-524: The roof, and finally they said, "Well, you gotta take the perspiration off". I had the stars glistening in the perspiration on his Black skin. Bill said, "Fuck you", and he hung up. Civil Rights Movement 1954–1959 1960–1963 1964–1968 The civil rights movement was a social movement and campaign in the United States from 1954 to 1968 that aimed to abolish legalized racial segregation , discrimination , and disenfranchisement in
12978-459: The same time as African Americans were being disenfranchised, white southerners imposed racial segregation by law. Violence against blacks increased, with numerous lynchings through the turn of the century. The system of de jure state-sanctioned racial discrimination and oppression that emerged from the post-Reconstruction South became known as the " Jim Crow " system. The United States Supreme Court made up almost entirely of Northerners, upheld
13104-646: The states failed to implement the acts, the laws allowed the Federal Government to get involved. Many Republican governors were afraid of sending black militia troops to fight the Klan for fear of war. After the disputed election of 1876, which resulted in the end of Reconstruction and the withdrawal of federal troops, whites in the South regained political control of the region's state legislatures. They continued to intimidate and violently attack blacks before and during elections to suppress their voting, but
13230-553: The stories were written by Kurtzman, Feldstein, and Craig. Other writers, including Carl Wessler , Jack Oleck , and Otto Binder , were later brought on board. EC succeeded with its fresh approach and pioneered forming relationships with its readers through its letters to the editor and fan organization, the National EC Fan-Addict Club. EC Comics promoted its stable of illustrators, allowing each to sign his art and encouraging them to develop distinctive styles;
13356-499: The telephone in unison. Murphy hung up on them, but the story ran in its original form. Feldstein, interviewed for the book Tales of Terror: The EC Companion , reiterated his recollection of Murphy making the request: So he said it can't be a Black [person]. So I said, "For God's sakes, Judge Murphy, that's the whole point of the Goddamn story!" So he said, "No, it can't be a Black". Bill [Gaines] just called him up [later] and raised
13482-432: The time period considered to be the "African-American civil rights" era, the predominant use of protest was nonviolent, or peaceful. Often referred to as pacifism, the method of nonviolence is considered to be an attempt to impact society positively. Although acts of racial discrimination have occurred historically throughout the United States, perhaps the most violent regions have been in the former Confederate states. During
13608-546: The turn of the century, nor did a single nursery school exist – even as the Second Great Migration was causing overcrowding. Existing schools tended to be dilapidated and staffed with inexperienced teachers. Brown helped stimulate activism among New York City parents like Mae Mallory who, with the support of the NAACP, initiated a successful lawsuit against the city and state on Brown 's principles. Mallory and thousands of other parents bolstered
13734-414: The unanimous Supreme Court ruling, many states began to gradually integrate their schools, but some areas of the South resisted by closing public schools altogether. The integration of Southern public libraries followed demonstrations and protests that used techniques seen in other elements of the larger civil rights movement. This included sit-ins, beatings, and white resistance. For example, in 1963 in
13860-512: The white or Caucasian race. While many whites defended their space with violence, intimidation, or legal tactics toward black people, many other whites migrated to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions, a process known as white flight . From the 1930s to the 1960s, the National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB) issued guidelines that specified that a realtor "should never be instrumental in introducing to
13986-480: The white-dominated Democratic Party maintained political control of the South. With whites controlling all the seats representing the total population of the South, they had a powerful voting bloc in Congress. The Republican Party —the "party of Lincoln" and the party to which most blacks had belonged—shrank to insignificance except in remote Unionist areas of Appalachia and the Ozarks as black voter registration
14112-471: Was a more direct and potentially more rapid means of creating change than the traditional approach of mounting court challenges used by the NAACP and others. In 1952, the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), led by T. R. M. Howard , a black surgeon, entrepreneur, and planter organized a successful boycott of gas stations in Mississippi that refused to provide restrooms for blacks. Through
14238-404: Was a way of life, a culture. However, not everyone agreed with this notion. James Forman, former SNCC (and later Black Panther) member, and nonviolence trainer was among those who did not. In his autobiography, The Making of Black Revolutionaries , Forman revealed his perspective on the method of nonviolence as "strictly a tactic, not a way of life without limitations." Similarly, Bob Moses , who
14364-401: Was also an active member of SNCC , felt that the method of nonviolence was practical. When interviewed by author Robert Penn Warren, Moses said "There's no question that he ( Martin Luther King Jr. ) had a great deal of influence with the masses. But I don't think it's in the direction of love. It's in a practical direction … ." (Who Speaks for the Negro? Warren). According to a 2020 study in
14490-689: Was arrested, Rosa Parks did the same thing. Parks soon became the symbol of the resulting Montgomery bus boycott and received national publicity. She was later hailed as the "mother of the civil rights movement". Parks was secretary of the Montgomery NAACP chapter and had recently returned from a meeting at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee where nonviolence as a strategy was taught by Myles Horton and others. After Parks' arrest, African Americans gathered and organized
14616-417: Was discovered and retrieved from the river. After Emmett's mother, Mamie Till , came to identify the remains of her son, she decided she wanted to "let the people see what I have seen". Till's mother then had his body taken back to Chicago where she had it displayed in an open casket during the funeral services where many thousands of visitors arrived to show their respects. A later publication of an image at
14742-497: Was elected President of this organization. The lengthy protest attracted national attention for him and the city. His eloquent appeals to Christian brotherhood and American idealism created a positive impression on people both inside and outside the South. The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine students who attended segregated black high schools in Little Rock , the capital of the state of Arkansas. They each volunteered when
14868-471: Was formatted to alternate illustrations with blocks of typeset text, and some of the contents were rewrites of stories previously published in EC's comic books. This experimental line lost money from the start and only lasted two issues per title. When EC's national distributor went bankrupt, Gaines dropped all of his titles except Mad . Mad sold well throughout the company's troubles, and Gaines focused exclusively on publishing it in magazine form. This move
14994-613: Was founded in 1909. It fought to end race discrimination through litigation , education, and lobbying efforts. Its crowning achievement was its legal victory in the Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education (1954), when the Warren Court ruled that segregation of public schools in the US was unconstitutional and, by implication, overturned the " separate but equal " doctrine established in Plessy v. Ferguson of 1896. Following
15120-411: Was itself also "objected to" because of "the central character being Black ". The story depicted a human astronaut, a representative of the Galactic Republic, visiting the planet Cybrinia, inhabited by robots. He finds the robots divided into functionally identical orange and blue races, with one having fewer rights and privileges than the other. The astronaut determines that due to the robots' bigotry,
15246-493: Was marked by hundreds of deaths and higher casualties across the U.S. as a result of white race riots against blacks that took place in more than three dozen cities. Urban problems such as crime and disease were blamed on the large influx of Southern blacks to cities in the north and west, based on stereotypes of rural southern African-Americans. Overall, blacks in Northern and Western cities experienced systemic discrimination in
15372-487: Was off his nut. He was really out to get us", recalls [EC editor] Feldstein. "I went in there with this story and Murphy says, 'It can't be a Black man'. But ... but that's the whole point of the story!" Feldstein sputtered. When Murphy continued to insist that the Black man had to go, Feldstein put it on the line. "Listen", he told Murphy, "you've been riding us and making it impossible to put out anything at all because you guys just want us out of business". [Feldstein] reported
15498-410: Was suppressed. The Republican lily-white movement also gained strength by excluding blacks. Until 1965, the " Solid South " was a one-party system under the white Democrats. Excepting the previously noted historic Unionist strongholds the Democratic Party nomination was tantamount to election for state and local office. In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington , president of
15624-500: Was to preserve the peace, deployed the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the black students from entering the school. Faubus defied federal court orders, whereupon President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened. He federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent them home. Then he sent in an elite Army unit to escort the students to school and protect them between classes during the 1957–58 school year. In class, however,
15750-539: Was to reconcile its editor Harvey Kurtzman , who had received an offer to join the magazine Pageant , but preferred to remain in charge of his magazine. The switch also removed Mad from the auspices of the Comics Code . Kurtzman, regardless, left Mad soon afterward when Gaines would not give him 51 percent control of the magazine, and Gaines brought back Al Feldstein as Kurtzman's successor. The magazine enjoyed great success for decades afterward. Gaines sold
15876-570: Was unconstitutional. The federal government filed a friend of the court brief in the case urging the justices to consider the effect that segregation had on America's image in the Cold War . Secretary of State Dean Acheson was quoted in the brief stating that "The United States is under constant attack in the foreign press, over the foreign radio, and in such international bodies as the United Nations because of various practices of discrimination in this country." The following year, in
#323676