EARLY ACCESS/AD-FREE. Just a small thanks for your support!!
INTRODUCTION
Even before the Civil War, Black people fought in America’s wars with hopes of gaining acceptance and recognition as U.S. Citizens. Even so, the armed forces remained segregated through World War II, and black soldiers and their women’s auxiliary units were regularly disregarded and mistreated. This article will explore the essential role black Americans played in the war effort and how they contributed to the cause at home and abroad.
African Americans have a record of serving the Armed forces with distinction. That was true of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment’s siege of Fort Wagner in the Civil War. It remained true during World War I when Henry Johnson served with the 369th Infantry Regiment, also known as the Harlem Hellfighters. Having earned the respect of the French allies, Johnson became the first American to receive France’s highest military honor, the Croix de Guerre. Still, Black and white military personnel served in divided units since the Civil War. Black service members experienced separate and inferior segregated sleeping quarters, transportation, canteens, and even church services. Despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, many still considered black soldiers too cowardly to fight, too inept at executing military strategy, and unfit to lead others.
In 1925, an Army War College Study concluded that
In the process of evolution the American negro has not progressed as far as the other sub-species of the human family. As a race he has not developed leadership qualities. His mental inferiority and the inherent weaknesses of his character are factors that must be considered with great care in the preparation of any plan for his employment in war. . . .In the past wars the negro has made a fair laborer, but an inferior technician. As a fighter he has been inferior to the white man even when led by white officers. (Source: American Social History Project)
The Tuskegee Airmen, sometimes known as the Red Tails, were members of the 332nd fighter group. The Red Tails gained distinction by escorting bomber pilots into enemy territory. Formed in 1941, the pilots underwent extensive training at the Army Airfield based in Tuskegee, Alabama. They became the first black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps, which would later become the Air Force. During their service, Tuskegee Airmen flew more than 15,000 missions in Europe and North Africa during World War II. When moved to Italy and given the opportunity, they shot down 12 German bombers in two days using slower secondhand planes. By the war’s end, they earned more than 150 Distinguished Flying crosses.
BLACK WOMEN IN WWII
The call to join the war effort also brought women into the labor force, but like their male counterparts, Black women experienced segregation and discrimination. In the various organizations designed for each military branch, white women could expect training in medical or leadership roles and the promise of career opportunities. In contrast, black women remained relegated to menial labor. Despite these limitations, black women distinguished themselves in service.
In March of 2022, President Joe Biden signed an act awarding a Congressional Gold Medal to the women of the 6888th Battalion (or “Six Triple Eight). At the behest of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights leader Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, the Army finally allowed Black women to join their White counterparts and serve overseas in the Women’s Army Corps, or WACs.
In 1948, the Army sent the Six Triple Eight with a specific task. According to a report from the Adjutant General,
Since D-Day (June 6, 1944), airplane hangers in Birmingham, London held undelivered Christmas packages, and a constant stream of incoming mail added to an already massive backlog of letters (7 million). (Source: Pasadena Star-News)
Critical for troop morale, for many, it had been months since they received a letter from home. The Six Triple Eight
cleared out a backlog of about 17 million pieces of mail in three months — half the time projected. The Battalion would go on to serve in France before returning home. …Housing, mess halls and recreation facilities were segregated by race and sex, forcing them to set up all their own operations. (Source: “Black Female WWII Unit Hoping To Get Congressional Honor”)
In addition to fighting for opportunities abroad, Black organizers led an additional battle on the homefront.
THE “DOUBLE V” CAMPAIGN
Another crusade black people took up during the 1940s was the Double V campaign. This newspaper campaign, led by James G. Thompson, reminded Americans that while fighting fascism abroad, there remained a fight against racism at home. The “Double V” campaign—victory over fascism abroad and racism at home— was more than a slogan. Black Americans at home and overseas faced constant disregard for their personhood.
Favorable treatment of German and Italian prisoners of war was particularly offensive to African American soldiers. Lloyd Brown recalled a Salina, Kansas, restaurant owner who told him and other black troops, “You boys know we don’t serve colored here,” while German prisoners of war were eating at the lunch counter. (Taylor 265)
However, as with World War I, wartime industries brought opportunities to Black workers.
Second Great Migration
Often called the Second Great Migration, the Black population in the western United States grew by 443,000 (or 33%) during the World War II years. California alone gained a 272% rise in its African American population. Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, and San Diego collectively absorbed 70% of the increase in the region’s African American population during the 1940s. (Taylor 251) These areas were heavily affected by rapidly expanding defense industries.
In San Diego, an aircraft production center, African American employees faced unwarranted pay deductions or transfers, antiblack remarks by supervisors or coworkers, or social segregation. Restrictive covenants barred 95 percent of the World War II-era housing to blacks. (Taylor 270) As a result, San Diego’s Logan Heights, southeast of downtown, received almost all of that city’s African American newcomers.
Between 1945 and 1948 the city’s black residents filed more lawsuits contesting covenants than the rest of the nation combined. Many of these lawsuits were filed by Loren Miller, an NAACP attorney who developed a national reputation through his legal work against housing discrimination. (Taylor 270)
The Port Chicago Mutiny
Just north of San Francisco, Port Chicago Naval Base became a significant supply conduit for the war effort in the Pacific in 1942. By that time, Black naval personnel dominated the workforce. However, their importance as a supplier in the Pacific theater came at the expense of unsafe conditions as the stevedores worked at breakneck speeds to supply the warships.
On the evening of July 17, 1944, about half the facility’s black dockworkers were loading two ammunition ships…when an explosion destroyed the ships and much of nearby Port Chicago. 320 men, including 202 African Americans, died. Three weeks later 328 surviving stevedores at nearby Mare Island refused an order to load ammunition ships. (Taylor 265)
Through threats and coercion from navy officials, all but 50 resumed work. The remaining men were arrested as mutineers, leading to the longest and largest mutiny trial in naval history. Although later reduced, a military tribunal found the defendants guilty and sentenced each to fifteen years’ detention and a dishonorable discharge.
THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON MOVEMENT
To address racial segregation in the United States military and rampant discrimination in defense industries, seasoned labor organizer and socialist A. Philip Randolph and his protégé, Bayard Rustin, proposed a march on Washington in 1941. As we saw previously, Randolph is best known for his work in achieving union recognition for the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters within the ranks of the American Federation of Labor.
Rustin was born on March 17, 1912. In the 1930s, he became heavily involved in pacifist groups and early civil rights protests. Despite Rustin’s development into one of the most outstanding organizers in the history of the civil rights movement, Rustin had two liabilities that would later cause the civil rights community to shun him. Along with his early affiliation with the Communist Party during a period when the party fought aggressively to organize and fight for the rights of Black workers, Rustin was also an openly gay Black man. However, in an upcoming video, I will discuss how misogyny and homophobia hurt the Civil Rights Movement.
Randolph’s call for March on Washington threatened to expose the hypocrisy of fighting a war against fascism abroad with a segregated army rampant with discrimination. Recognizing the propaganda vulnerability of having tens of thousands of black American citizens march on the streets of Washington for basic human dignity, Roosevelt assuaged Randolph by signing executive order 8802. While the order failed to dismantle segregation within the armed forces, it established a Fair Employment Practices Commission to ban racial discrimination in government defense industries. Considering the executive order of victory, Randolph called off the March.
Still, the FEPC, whose mission was to investigate complaints of discrimination against industries receiving government contracts, lacked sufficient resources and enforcement. Randolph continued organizing to hold the FPPC accountable. In the summer of 1942. The March on Washington Movement organized a series of mass public rallies. On May 27, 1943, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9346, establishing a new Committee on Fair Employment Practice with greater enforcement authority. As a result, Fair Employment Practices Committee proved a powerful ally. The FEPC soon opened numerous western workplaces previously closed to African Americans, white women, and other people of color.
World War II was a continuation of a historical pattern. Black Americans sought acceptance and recognition as citizens through military service and fought with distinction, only to find their efforts minimized, overlooked, and disregarded. To this day, African Americans continue to be overrepresented in the military. Black servicemembers made enormous contributions to the victory against fascism abroad, only to find the victory at home unfulfilled.
SOURCES
“Black Female WWII Unit Hoping To Get Congressional Honor.” The Tennessee Tribune, 7 June 2022.
McCarthy, Dennis. “They rescued ‘mail call’: Meet the heroic African American women of WWII’s 6888th Battalion.” Los Angeles Daily News, 28 January 2022.
Taylor, Quintard. In Search of the Racial Frontier W.W. Norton & Company, 1998.
“The Army War College Studies Black Soldiers · SHEC: Resources for Teachers.” Social History for Every Classroom, https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/808.
“The Negro Soldier.” The National Archives Catalog, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/35956.
