"The barrier breaking love of God": the multiracial activism of the Young Women's Christian Association, 1940s to 1970s

Abstract

This dissertation examines the ways in which the Young Women's Christian Association (the Y) redefined its race relations work in the post World War II era, and how it used Christian principles and rhetoric to construct a multiracially inclusive organization. For forty years, from its official incorporation in 1906 until its National Convention in 1946, the Y maintained segregated (Black, White, and Asian) branches. While it had tentatively fostered improved Black-White race relations in both its community and its student branches throughout the 1920s and 1930s, it was not until America's entry into World War II and the subsequent internment of thousands of Japanese Americans that the organization's racial approach went from separate but equal to full inclusion. This change caused members to reconceptualize what constituted interracial work and relationships, leading them directly into the civil rights movement and into creating one of the few multiracial spaces within the early women's movement. From that point on, the organization stayed firmly committed to its ultimate goal of racial inclusiveness, and used Christian tenets and rhetoric as its principal force in making this goal a reality.