Black Soldiers in World War II America

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert F. Jefferson
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Military Training ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Establishment ◽  
Black Soldiers ◽  
American Military ◽  
The Military ◽  
American Racism

The history of the African American military experience in World War II tends to revolve around two central questions: How did World War II and American racism shape the black experience in the American military? And how did black GIs reshape the parameters of their wartime experiences? From the mid-1920s through the Great Depression years of the 1930s, military planners evaluated the performance of black soldiers in World War I while trying to ascertain their presence in future wars. However, quite often their discussions about African American servicemen in the military establishment were deeply moored in the traditions, customs, and practices of American racism, racist stereotypes, and innuendo. Simultaneously, African American leaders and their allies waged a relentless battle to secure the future presence of the uniformed men and women who would serve in the nation’s military. Through their exercise of voting rights, threats of protest demonstration, litigation, and White House lobbying from 1939 through 1942, civil rights advocates and their affiliates managed to obtain some minor concessions from the military establishment. But the military’s stubborn adherence to a policy barring black and white soldiers from serving in the same units continued through the rest of the war. Between 1943 and 1945, black GIs faced white officer hostility, civilian antagonism, and military police brutality while undergoing military training throughout the country. Similarly, African American servicewomen faced systemic racism and sexism in the military during the period. Throughout various stages of the American war effort, black civil rights groups, the press, and their allies mounted the opening salvoes in the battle to protect and defend the wellbeing of black soldiers in uniform. While serving on the battlefields of World War II, fighting African American GIs became foot soldiers in the wider struggles against tyranny abroad. After returning home in 1945, black World War II-era activists such as Daisy Lampkin and Ruby Hurley, and ex-servicemen and women, laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement.

Epilogue

2020 ◽  
pp. 213-220
Author(s):  
Khary Oronde Polk
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Military Service ◽  
World War ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Black Soldiers ◽  
Successive Generations ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Military

The epilogue considers the military writings of William Gardner Smith, and the literary reception of his 1948 novel, Last of the Conquerors. Smith worked as a reporter for the Pittsburgh Courier before he received his draft notice to serve as an occupation soldier in Berlin. While deployed, he continued to write for the Courier as a special correspondent, detailing the injustices faced by Black soldiers abroad under his pen name, Bill Smith. His witness as subject and scribe of the overseas military apparatus offered a counter history to America’s official military record of occupation, and laid the foundation for what would become the familiar narrative told about black soldiering in the postwar era: that military service in the occupied nation was like a “breath of freedom” for African American troops. These contagious narratives of black military freedom and control influenced successive generations of African Americans to join the service, and produced a possibility that had not been possible until the end of World War II: that black men and women might look toward the military service as a career.

“The Dusky Doughboys”: Interaction between African American Soldiers and the Population of Northern Ireland during the Second World War

2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 1131-1154 ◽  
Author(s):  
SIMON TOPPING
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
Black Soldiers ◽  
American Military ◽  
The People ◽  
Second World

This article will examine the ways in which the people of Northern Ireland and African American troops stationed there during the Second World War reacted to each other. It will also consider the effect of institutional racism in the American military on this relationship, concluding that, for the most part, the population welcomed black soldiers and refused to endorse American racial attitudes or enforce Jim Crow segregation. This piece argues that, bearing in mind the latent racism of the time, the response of the Northern Irish to African Americans was essentially colour-blind, and this was true in both the Protestant and Catholic communities.

“The Negro Nurse—A Citizen Fighting for Democracy”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charissa J. Threat
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
World War I ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
White Male ◽  
African American Female ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
World War ◽  
Female Nurses

This chapter examines the efforts by black female nurses and white male nurses to claim a space for themselves in a profession that relegated them to the margins. It begins with a discussion of the founding of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses and the Army Nurse Corps (ANC), along with an overview of healthcare and home-front racial politics during World War II. It then turns to nurse shortages during World War I and World War II and proceeds by analyzing the World War II integration campaign by African American female nurses within the larger context of the civil rights movement. In an effort to break down racial barriers, the chapter shows that African American nurses co-opted traditional gender conventions to make the claim that the sex of the nurse, not race, should determine nursing care for soldiers. It also explores how African Americans used wartime rhetoric about equality and democracy on behalf of their campaign for equal rights, justice, and opportunity.

Die Abteilungen für Luftfahrt an deutschen Universitäten unter dem NS-Regime

STADION ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-85
Author(s):  
Alexander Priebe
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Military Training ◽  
World War ◽  
Universities And Colleges ◽  
Aviation Training ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Training And Research ◽  
Aeronautical Engineering ◽  
The Military ◽  
Scientific Fields

On 17 November 1934, the Reich Education Ministry (REM) issued a decree on the “cultivation of aviation in schools and universities”. It aimed at “ensuring the next generation of aviation professionals in the practical, aeronautical, technical, and scientific fields”, the importance of which, according to the REM, “had even increased with the resurgence of the German Luftwaffe”. Hence, universities and colleges of physical education were deemed responsible for further civil and - increasingly - military training and research in aviation, whereas research in aeronautical engineering was carried out at technical universities, under the enforced auspices of the Reich Ministry of Aviation. From 1934 onwards, aviation training would be coordinated by departments of aviation, which were also responsible for the gliding training of students and, above all, sports instructors. The recast decree of 30 December 1939 would expand and enforce training and research defined as “essential for the war effort”. This crucial development, which essentially bolstered the military strategy of the Nazis before and during World War II, i.e., the so-called “Blitzkrieg”, is presented in a detailed overview, based on recently discovered archival sources.

Edward M. Almond and the US Army

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E. Lynch
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
World War ◽  
Us Army ◽  
Greatest Generation ◽  
Virginia Military Institute ◽  
The Us ◽  
Military Institute ◽  
The Military

This biography examines the long career of Lt. Gen. Edward M. Almond, who was born to a family of modest means in rural Virginia. His early education at the Virginia Military Institute, steeped him in Confederate lore and nurtured his “can do” attitude, natural aggressiveness, demanding personality and sometimes self-serving nature. These qualities later earned him the sobriquet “Sic’em, Ned,” which stuck with him for the remainder of his career. Almond commanded the African-American 92nd Infantry Division during World War II. The division failed in combat and was re-organized, after which it contained one white, one black, and the Army’s only Japanese-American (Nisei) regiment. The years since that war have seen the glorification of the “Greatest Generation,” with all racist notions and ideas “whitewashed” with a veneer of honor. When war came to Korea, Almond commanded X Corps in the Inchon invasion, liberation of Seoul, race to the Yalu. When the Chinese entered the war and sent the US Army into retreat, Almond mounted one of the largest evacuations in history at Hungnam -- but not before the disaster at Chosin claimed the lives of hundreds of soldiers and marines. This book reveals Almond as a man who stubbornly held onto bigoted attitudes about race, but also exhibited an unfaltering commitment to the military profession. Often viewed as the “Army’s racist,” Almond reflected the attitudes of the Army and society. This book places Almond in a broader context and presents a more complete picture of this flawed man yet gifted officer.

Paul Bunyan and the “Frozen Logger”

2020 ◽  
pp. 180-240
Author(s):  
Michael Goldfield
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
The Other ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
World War ◽  
The South ◽  
Wood Industry ◽  
National Office

Chapter 5 highlights the wood industry, one of the largest industries in the country. Most of the woodworkers were located in the South, and half of those workers were African-American. Woodworkers successfully organized in the Northwest and Canada, the other two centers of the industry. Despite a perceived willingness of southern woodworkers to unionize, this did not happen. The chapter attributes most of the problems to an incompetent, right-wing, racially backward leadership, which was installed by the CIO national office before World War II. The chapter also argues that the successful organization of southern woodworkers had the potential to radically transform the civil rights movement.

scholarly journals “Deep-seated Abnormality”: Military Psychiatry, Segregation, and Discourses of Black “Unfitness” in World War II

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-235
Author(s):  
Margarita Aragon
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Black Masculinity ◽  
World War ◽  
Black Manhood ◽  
American Military ◽  
Medical Discourses ◽  
Mind And Body ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Impact

This article examines the construction of “unfit” black masculinity in institutional and medical discourses of the American military during World War II. Examining the military medical literature on “maladjustment” in context of the armed forces practice of segregation, I argue that by ignoring the impact of segregation, military psychiatrists reproduced linkages between blackness and “defect.” Despite the absence of direct assertions of racial hierarchy, these discourses thus implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, construed black manhood as alternately feeble and menacing, but above all as “abnormal” in both mind and body. Examining articles from psychiatric and military medical journals, as well as the internal documents of military officials, I investigate these claims in regard to the conceptualization and management of “constitutional defects” and psychosomatic illness.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 370-388
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Guglielmo
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Military Service ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
American People ◽  
World War ◽  
American Military ◽  
Postwar America ◽  
War Effort ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Military

The conclusion traces the ways that racist boundaries waxed and waned in the final stages of World War II military service and addresses the larger impact that these boundaries had on American troops, the American military, and the nation. In the end, black-white lines, if blurred some, still defined many troops’ last days in uniform. White-nonwhite lines also appeared here and there, but still lacked the same institutionalization, reach, and force. And this broader complex of lines fundamentally shaped postwar America in numerous, complicated, and too often forgotten ways. They politicized a varied and substantial group of veterans, who returned home prepared and determined to democratize the military and the nation. But the cost of these lines was enormous. They impeded America’s war effort, undermined the nation’s Four Freedoms rhetoric, traumatized, even killed, an unknowable number of nonwhite troops, further naturalized the very concept of race, deepened many whites’ investments in white supremacy, especially anti-black racism, and further fractured the American people and their politics.

World War II

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maggi M. Morehouse
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Military Service ◽  
African American Men ◽  
African Descent ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Black Soldiers

The war years were transformative for people of African descent, particularly in the United States. About 10 percent of the population, or 13 million people out of 130 million Americans, were of African descent in the war years. More African Americans than in previous times were engaged in military operations and defense industry work, and larger numbers were represented in the federal government’s operations. African Americans migrated in larger numbers to different regions for work or military service, they experienced a transformation into a more urban community, and many became foot-soldiers agitating for equality and civil rights. African Americans who experienced the war years either stateside or on the international stage were profoundly affected by their experiences, including the horrors of combat warfare and the opportunities of a booming wartime economy. Having survived the bleakness of the 1930s-era economic depression, World War II America offered more opportunities for employment, better living conditions and life choices, and advancement through military participation. However, all of these opportunities were hampered by the anti-black racism that greatly reduced equality within the military, the government, and defense industries. Two million African American men and women found new employment in war industry jobs. The army’s governing policy called “segregation without discrimination” meant mostly white officers commanding black troops, which limited the opportunities of black soldiers. Still, 2.5 million African American men and women volunteered for military service, with about 1.5 million ultimately selected to serve. Over six thousand African American women formed into segregated units of the Women’s Auxiliary Corps. Two army infantry divisions of black soldiers fought in the war: the 92nd Buffalo Soldier Division in Italy, and the 93rd Blue Helmets Division in the Pacific Islands. While most of the “Greatest (Black) Generation” served in service and support units, some fifty thousand black soldiers served in combat units. Other specialized units included the Tuskegee Airmen, the “Triple Nickle” Parachute Unit, the 761st “Black Panther” Tank Battalion, and the “Red Ball Express” Trucking companies. Black soldiers helped to liberate Nazi concentration camps, they came ashore in the D-Day operations, and they volunteered in the brutal Battle of the Bulge campaign, among many other distinctive operations. Black medical professionals ran international healthcare operations. Specialized service personnel performed engineering feats through difficult terrain. America’s defense industries employed more black workers from ship building to parachute construction, from Victory gardens to government appointments, and in the production of guns and butter. In spite of the prejudicial treatment that constrained their participation, many African Americans resisted segregation and discrimination by engaging in the “Double V” campaign: Victory against America’s enemies abroad, and Victory against racism at home. Because the war years brought about more transformations than before, this is a significant time in African American history.

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