Introduction
Since the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, African Americans have strived for equal opportunities and treatment. Following the first Great War, black leaders like W.E.B. Dubois felt the war could be an opportunity to win freedom. Many African Americans believed enlisting in the military would earn them equal rights. However, the Progressive Presidents’ common racial stances did not support these beliefs. The Second World War reignited African Americans’ goals. What impact did the war years have on the rights of African Americans? Although there was some progress towards equal rights, segregation was constant in the South, and African Americans were treated as second-class citizens.[1]
Ending of Slavery
The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order changing the status of millions of slaves to free. However, the ending of the Civil War propelled Congress to pass the 13th Amendment. This amendment made it official; the abolishment of the institution of slavery.[2] Some progress was coming. African Americans were able to attend an educational institutions. They were allowed to own land and earn a wage. Several were voted into Congress. The Reconstruction era brought forth the basis for freedom struggles.
The institutions established under slavery, like schools, families, and churches, were intensified after the Civil War. Some African Americans felt they could prosper through education. They felt education would allow them to read the bible and participate in politics. Others felt land ownership would bring economic independence. They believed economic freedom enhanced their opportunities for equal rights like white Americans. However, all African Americans agreed community was the foundation during the Reconstruction era.
There were steps back after the Reconstruction era. Certain white groups in the South felt there was too much change and feared the South was corrupted. Many white southerners worked to reverse the Reconstruction achievement. They cut spending on public schools, especially if it hurts the black community. New laws were introduced to arrest individuals with no jobs and increased the punishment for any minor infractions. Soon to follow were poll taxes and literacy tests which looked to disenfranchise African Americans. The final straw was segregation. In 1896, the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling approved state laws requiring separate facilities for blacks and whites.[3]
African Americans Striving for Equality
Some African Americans felt enlisting could overturn or change the narrative inflicted on them by the Plessy decision. The Spanish-American War was this opportunity. Author and Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington, Christopher Parker wrote in his book, Fighting for Democracy: Black Veterans and the Struggle Against White Supremacy in the Postwar South, “black Americans’ service in the Spanish-American War would ultimately redound to the benefit of the race.”[4] Parker explained that African American editor E.E. Cooper felt the participation in this war would guide a sense of brotherhood and loosen the racial divide. The Progressive era did not see much progression for African Americans. African Americans agreed with this sentiment, and many joined the fight. However, while serving in Cuba, Theodore Roosevelt painted a picture that black soldiers were cowards. Even with these words from Roosevelt, many black soldiers earned medals of honor. Although there was a sense of accomplishment among these black soldiers, their achievements during this war did not lead to much progress or change.
After his tour in Cuba, Theodore Roosevelt joined the political ranks and soon became the 26th President. While serving as President, Roosevelt continued his antics and rhetoric against African Americans by saying they were unfit to vote. Another Progressive President, Woodrow Wilson, played a premier screening of the controversial film The Birth of a Nation. But as the Great War came knocking on the U.S. doorsteps, America needed the support of the black community.
The Great War
W.E.B Dubois campaigned for African Americans to enlist in the military. He urged them to fully participate in combat missions.[5] He felt “only when [the Negro] rose and fought and killed did emancipation become possible.”[6] Similar to the Spanish-America War, DuBois felt this sacrifice could lead to “the right to vote and the right to work and the right to live without insult”.[7] There was a divide amongst the black community over this stance, but for the most part, many sided with Dubois. This is confirmed by the approximately 370,000 African Americans that served in the Great War.[8] However, there was no progression toward equality following the first Great War.
Dubois conveys his disappointment while the black units returned home. Dubois expresses his disdain in an editorial, Returning Soldiers, “the land that disenfranchise its citizens and calls itself a democracy lies and know it lies.”[9] In this same editorial, Dubois explains that this nation also belongs to African Americans and even after its betrayal, “under similar circumstances, we would fight again.”[10] Approximately 20 years later, the nation would indeed need African Americans to fight again.
The Great Depression
African Americans suffered during the Great Depression. They were the first to lose their jobs and the last to be given the opportunity to rebound. Blacks suffered high unemployment rates. Southern white democrats showed the limitations of the New Deal with reinforced housing segregation. Blacks barely benefited, if at all, from all the new initiatives passed by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s (FDR) New Deal. With the approach of the Second World War, African Americans had to examine their values and beliefs; constantly being treated as second class citizens all while showing they would fight for the nation they called home. However, as seen in prior wars, blacks believed they needed to be involved and World War II would be no different. But, with the Second World War, could Americans have learned from their previous mistakes? Could African Americans see the change they’ve desired since the revolutionary war?
World War II
African Americans felt enlisting in World War II would bring a new way of living and change they felt would happen since the Spanish American War. Historian Helen Black wrote an article, Three Generations, Three Wars: African American Veterans, she explains that African American “expected that competencies learned in the service would upgrade their status as skilled workers when they returned home.”[11]
In addition, some African Americans felt that if Adolf Hitler had prevailed, their fate could be far worse than in its current state. Author and Activist Merze Tate wrote an article during the war, The War Aims of World War I and World War II and Their Relation to the Darker Peoples of the World, that African Americans enlisted are “willing to die to destroy Nazism abroad only if he is certain that principles of that philosophy shall not prevail at home.”[12] This comes with the belief that Nazism existed within the United States. African Americans equivalent their treatment by Americans like Reich regime in Germany. Black Newspaper during the war explained “our biggest problem at the moment is to watch the Hitlers right here in our own country.”[13]
Segregation abroad and at home
Even after fighting in the previous wars, segregation was still prevalent. Enlisted blacks did not train, sleep or service with their white counterparts. Many white commanders misrepresented the impact African American servicemen had on the war. They focused on the failures “and highlighted the supposed frailties of the African race.”[14] This disrupted the morale of African American units. Chas Thompson, an editor for the Journal of Negro Education, wrote an article, The Basis of Negro Morale in World War II, explaining the effects of segregation and treatment. He states that African Americans “have tried to point out to the Government that the gratuitous and reactionary segregation policy of the armed forces not only must inevitably affect Negro morale but constitutes an obstacle to the war effort in general.”[15]
There were instances that wounded black soldiers needing blood transfusions had their own designated blood to avoid mixing with different races.[16] Tate explains that the practice started back home when “in the refusal of the Red Cross to receive Negro blood and then in the United States Army and Navy order to the Red Cross to Jim Crow that blood.”[17]
Not only did the enlisted African Americans faced ridicule aboard, but they also faced similar treatment back home. Many politicians wanted to ensure returning servicemen and women had policies in place to ease the transition. However, African American veterans were not included in these policies. The newly established G.I. Bill benefits were not equally distributed to black veterans.[18] These types of inequalities back home led to many African Americans feeling as if they were fighting a two-front war themselves. They were fighting abroad against Germans and back home with whites. Historian Kimberly Phillips provided firsthand views in her book, War! What is it Good For? On a newly drafted soldiers, James Thompson. Thompson “questioned why he should serve his country in its victory over the forces while the army inducted him as half American in a Jim Crow military.”[19] Eventually, this belief called for victory both abroad and at home which would be known as the “Double V Campaign”. This campaign allowed African Americans to create their own “photographs, illustrations, comics, cartoons, and sketches.”[20]
FDR and Truman Initiatives
Rhetoric of equal rights helped spur some changes and progress. President FDR approached discrimination differently than previous counterparts, denouncing any theory of racial mastery. FDR passed the Fair Employment Practices Commission. This bill was passed only after A. Phillip Randolph called for a March on Washington to end segregation.[21] In addition, several anti-lynching bills had been introduced since 1940. Lynching has been an issue since the end of the Reconstruction era. Many African American activists have written about the horror of these horrific crimes, but, for the most part have occurred without many consequences. Author Florence Murray wrote an article, The Negro and Civil Liberties during World War II explains some of the progress that occurred during her era. She mentions that “for the first time in forty years suspected lynchers were indicted in the Federal courts and a few were convicted.”[22]
Although not all indictments led to convictions, the small number of convictions in multiple states like North Carolina and Georgia was considered progress. Prior to World War II, almost all whites were never indicted, and the local authorities did not apply any pressure to stop these lynching events. Another form of progress was in the clampdown of peonage.[23] It may be difficult to understand how African Americans were held in a state of peonage because of debts. This was the case until the war; there have been several trials and “convictions obtained in four cases.”[24]
Some progress had occurred in politics. The Texas Democratic Party primary was deemed to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.[25] There had been attacks against the Poll Tax during the war. The voting rights issues had been covered by several newspapers around the country. Although they were minor improvements, the coverage alone against the all-white primary and the voting rights was not often covered in prior years. Therefore, the Second World War was different. While there was not absolute change on racial issues, “the chance for victory would be enhanced if the western world endorsed democracy at home and self-determination of the colonies.”[26]
One of the first steps President Harry Truman, ending segregation within the military. As Neil Wynn explained in his book, The African American Experience during World War II, Truman “was the first President to campaign actively in the black community when he addressed black audiences in Harlem during the 1948 campaign.”[27] There were several segregation rulings during the Truman presidency. These rulings were massive towards equality in education and eventually led to Brown vs. Board of Education. The African American experiences during World War II had some impact on the developments that occurred in the 1950s and 60s. There are some historians that debate this notion and believe other decades have had more effect.
Conclusion
African American service personnel returned home expecting to see change. These individuals contributed to the war as did their white counterparts. They received some support, but many did not. At times, the tensions escalated to violence among civilians and military personnel. Unfortunately, race issues dominated the postwar years, as many African Americans became more determined to see change. The war did not bring total change and many African American personnel and veterans were treated as second class citizens. But it did bring enough to establish conditions for the next generation to demand the United States to end segregation and treat them as equals.
Bibliography
Alkebulan, Paul. The African American Press in World War II: Toward Victory at Home and Abroad. Blue Ridge Summit: Lexington Books, 2014.
Black, Helen K. “Three Generations, Three Wars: African American Veterans.” The Gerontologist 56, no. 1 (2016): 33-41.
Brown, Stephanie. The Postwar African American Novel: Protest and Discontent, 1945-1950. University Press of Mississippi, 2011. University Press of Mississippi, 2014
Moore, Brenda L. To Serve My Country, to Serve My Race: The Story of the Only African American WACS Stationed Overseas During World War II. New York: NYU Press, 1996.
Murray, Florence. “The Negro and Civil Liberties during World War II.” Social Forces 24, no. 2 (1945): 211–16.
Phillips, Kimberley L. War! what is it Good for? Black Freedom Struggles and the U.S. Military from World War II to Iraq. 1st ed. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012
Parker, Christopher S. Fighting for Democracy: Black Veterans and the Struggle Against White Supremacy in the Postwar South. Princeton University Press, 2009.
Webb, Clive. “The Nazi Persecution of Jews and the African American Freedom Struggle.” Patterns of Prejudice 53, no. 4 (2019): 337-362.
Wynn, Neil A. The African American Experience during World War II. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010.
Tate, Merze. “The War Aims of World War I and World War II and their Relation to the Darker Peoples of the World.” The Journal of Negro Education 12, no. 3 (1943): 521-532.
Thompson, Chas H. “The Basis of Negro Morale in World War II.” The Journal of Negro Education 11, no. 4 (1942): 454–64.
Endnotes
[1] (Denis 2015)
[2] Christopher Parker, Fighting for Democracy: Black Veterans and the Struggle Against White Supremacy in the Postwar South, (Princeton University Press, 2009), 27.
[3] Ibid., 30
[4] Ibid.
[5] Kimberly Philips, War! what is it Good for? Black Freedom Struggles and the U.S. Military from World War II to Iraq (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 9.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Parker, Fighting for Democracy: Black Veterans and the Struggle Against White Supremacy in the Postwar South, 33.
[8] Neil A Wynn, The African American Experience during World War II, (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010), 5.
[9] Ibid., 100.
[10] Ibid., 101.
[11] Helen K. Black, “Three Generations, Three Wars: African American Veterans”, (The Gerontologist 56, no. 1 2016), 34.
[12] Tate, Merze. “The War Aims of World War I and World War II and their Relation to the Darker Peoples of the World”, (The Journal of Negro Education 12, no. 3 1943), 529.
[13] Clive Webb, “The Nazi Persecution of Jews and the African American Freedom Struggle”, (Patterns of Prejudice 53, no. 4 2019), 340.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Chas Thompson, “The Basis of Negro Morale in World War II”, (The Journal of Negro Education 11, no. 4 1942), 457.
[16] Black, The Gerontologist 56, 34.
[17] Merze, The Journal of Negro Education 12, 529.
[18] Brenda L. Moore, To Serve My Country, to Serve My Race: The Story of the Only African American WACS Stationed Overseas During World War II, (New York: NYU Press, 1996), 12.
[19] Philips, War! what is it Good for? Black Freedom Struggles and the U.S. Military from World War II to Iraq, 24.
[20] Ibid., 25.
[21] Ibid.,103.
[22] Florence Murray, “The Negro and Civil Liberties during World War II”, (Social Forces 24, no. 2 1945), 212.
[23] Ibid., 213.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Paul Alkebuian, The African American Press in World War II: Toward Victory at Home and Abroad (Blue Ridge Summit: Lexington Books, 2014), 132.
[26] Ibid., 144.
[27] Wynn, The African American Experience during World War II, 94.
Mostly History 