In 1948 racial divisions in the United States continued to run deep, but major changes in the social and legal climate were about to occur. During World War II, which the United States entered in 1941 and fought until the war’s end in 1945, African Americans and other minorities, including Native Americans and Japanese Americans, fought with great distinction. On the home front, minority-group women made major contributions to the war effort. Nevertheless, segregation in nearly every facet of American life remained entrenched—nowhere more so than in the U.S. armed forces.