Following World War I, a new, militant spirit of resistance and activism burgeoned among African-American citizens across the United States. Empowered by the sense that blacks had played a crucial role in the conflict, the descendants of freedmen returned home to fight for their own rights only to find persecution; this dire situation called for immediate, decisive action. During the interwar years, African Americans in the southwest Georgia Black Belt fought for community empowerment and, through the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and numerous other political and labor-oriented groups, established a significant organizing tradition, thereby laying the foundation for the modern civil rights movement in the area
