Kingsblood Royal by Sinclair Lewis

The epidemic of firing went on, but not everything was evil for the lost people in dark Egypt. Certain returned soldiers said that if a man could die with them in Europe, he could dine with them in Minnesota, and they had Phil Windeck elected to the American Legion.

Yet they were less friendly than their fathers might have been. Thirty years before, the Negroes had seemed to be gaining so much more of what they wanted because they had apparently wanted so much less. They had demanded then only a roof and sidemeat and not to be lynched. Now, they were demanding every human right, and whites who were self-admiringly willing to give them a dish of cold potatoes were sometimes unwilling to give them room at the workbench and the polling-booth, and muttered, "We've been too easy. We got to clamp down on these apes before they claim they can do our job just as good as we can." The black crusade had never seemed so risky as now, but any gain that was made was a real increase in human dignity, not a pink bow tied on inescapable chains.