Two of The Eagle's biggest (and earliest) crusades were against racism in the motion picture industry and the War Department. In 1914 articles and editorials were published in opposition to the making of D. W. Griffith's film "Birth of A Nation" with its derogatory portrayals of African Americans and celebratory depiction of Klu Klux Klan violence. This campaign was joined by other African American newspapers across the nation, and led to the banning of "Birth of A Nation" in some communities. The paper spoke out against injustice in the military during World War I, and again in World War II.

"Two of The Eagle's biggest (and earliest) crusades were against racism in the motion picture industry and the War Department."

After World War I, The California Eagle fought racial discrimination and segregation in Los Angeles and the State of California such as "restrictive covenant" practices. Restrictive covenants were policies or legal guidelines usually embedded (and often hidden) in zoning and real estate regulations which were used to keep new housing tracts and developments racially segregated. The covenants designated restrictions to the use of land or housing, and were used to keep African Americans and other minorities from living or purchasing property in certain neighborhoods.

The Eagle also denounced police brutality, and waged successful battles against discriminatory hiring practices at the Southern Telephone Company, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Boulder Dam Company, the Los Angeles General Hospital, and the Los Angeles Rapid Transit Company. In the 1930's, The Eagle joined forces with such papers as The Chicago Defender, The Pittsburgh Courier, The Afro-American, and The Norfolk Journal and Guide, to support nine black teenagers from Scottsboro, Alabama who were charged with raping two white women aboard a freight car. The case became known as the Scottsboro Case. The Basses also collaborated with Leon Washington of The Los Angeles Sentinel and co-sponsored the "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work" campaign on the West Coast, which dissuaded African Americans from patronizing businesses that had discriminatory hiring practices. This campaign was championed by black papers on the East Coast as well.


In 1951, Charlotta Bass sold the paper to Loren Miller, an attorney and former Eagle reporter, and in an issue dated April 26, announced her resignation in her personal column, "On The Sidewalk."

"After more than 40 years in which I have tried to serve my people and my country, as a good neighbor, as an editor, and as a fighter for Negro liberation, I feel that I must now take time to regain my health, to learn more about what is happening in the world...and to decide how I can be most useful in the years ahead."