Download or read book African Americans in the United States Army in World War II written by Bryan D. Booker and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The political, economic and social landscapes of the United States in the early 1940s were split by one overriding factor--race. This volume explores the ways in which this separation extended to the military forces and the impact which that segregation had on World War II.
Download or read book Taps For A Jim Crow Army written by Phillip McGuire and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-07-11 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many black soldiers serving in the U.S. Army during World War II hoped that they might make permanent gains as a result of their military service and their willingness to defend their country. They were soon disabused of such illusions. Taps for a Jim Crow Army is a powerful collection of letters written by black soldiers in the 1940s to various government and nongovernment officials. The soldiers expressed their disillusionment, rage, and anguish over the discrimination and segregation they experienced in the Army. Most black troops were denied entry into army specialist schools; black officers were not allowed to command white officers; black soldiers were served poorer food and were forced to ride Jim Crow military buses into town and to sit in Jim Crow base movie theaters. In the South, German POWs could use the same latrines as white American soldiers, but blacks could not. The original foreword by Benjamin Quarles, professor emeritus of history at Morgan State University, and a new foreword by Bernard C. Nalty, the chief historian in the Office of Air Force History, offer rich insights into the world of these soldiers.
Download or read book A More Unbending Battle The Harlem Hellfighters Struggle for Freedom in Wwi and Equality at Home written by Peter N. Nelson and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-03 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 369th Infantry Regiment was the first African American regiment mustered to fight in World War I. In a war where the vast majority of black soldiers served in the Service of Supply, unloading ships and building roads and railroads, the men of the 369th trained and fought side by side with the French at the front and ultimately spent more days in the trenches than any other American unit. They went toward in defense of a country afflicted by segregation, Jim Crow laws, lyn chings, and racial violence, but a country they believed in all the same. In A More Unbending Battle, journalist and author Peter Nelson chronicles the little-known story of the 369th. Recruited from all walks of Harlem life, the regiment fought alongside the French, since they were prohibited by Americas segregation policy from working together with white U.S. soldiers. Despite extraordinary odds, the 369th became one of the most successful and fear edregiments of the war. The Harlem Hell fighters, as their enemies named them, showed Extra ordinary valor on the battlefield, with many soldiers winning the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor, and were the first Allied unit to reach the Rhine River. A riveting depiction of both social triumph and battlefield heroism, A More Unbending Battle is the thrilling story of the dauntless Harlem Hell fighters.
Download or read book The Employment of Negro Troops written by Ulysses Lee and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-08-12 with total page 762 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recognizing that the story of Negro participation in military service during World War II was of national interest as well as of great value for future military planning, the Assistant Secretary of War in February 1944 recommended preparation of a book on this subject. The opportunity to undertake it came two years later with the assignment to the Army's Historical Division of the author, then a captain and a man highly qualified by training and experience to write such a work. After careful examination of the sources and reflection Captain Lee concluded that it would be impracticable to write a comprehensive and balanced history about Negro soldiers in a single volume. His plan, formally approved in August 1946, was to focus his own work on the development of Army policies in the use of Negroes in military service and on the problems associated with the execution of these policies at home and abroad, leaving to the authors of other volumes in the Army's World War II series, then taking shape, the responsibility for covering activities of Negroes in particular topical areas. This definition of the author's objective is needed in order to understand why he has described his work "in no sense a history of Negro troops in World War II." Writing some years ago, he explained: "The purpose of the present volume is to bring together the significant experience of the Army in dealing with an important national question: the full use of the human resources represented by that 10 percent of national population that is Negro. It does not attempt to follow, in narrative form, the participation of Negro troops in the many branches, commands, and units of the Army. . . . A fully descriptive title for the present volume, in the nineteenth century manner, would read: 'The U.S. Army and Its Use of Negro Troops in World War II: Problems in the Development and Application of Policy with Some Attention to the Results, Public and Military.'" Thus, in accordance with his objective, the author gives considerably more attention to the employment of Negroes as combat soldiers than to their use as service troops overseas. Even though a large majority of the Negroes sent overseas saw duty in service rather than in combat units, their employment in service forces did not present the same number or degree of problems.
Download or read book Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War II written by Alan M. Osur and published by . This book was released on 1977 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is based upon a Ph. D. dissertation written by an Air Force officer who studied at the University of Denver. Currently an Associate Professor of History at the Air Force Academy, Major Osur's account relates how the leadership in the War Department and the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) tried to deal with the problem of race and the prejudices which were reflected in the bulk of American society. It tells a story of black racial protests and riots which such attitudes and discrimination provoked. The author describes many of the discriminatory actions taken against black airmen, whose goal was equality of treatment and opportunities as American citizens. He also describes the role of black pilots as they fought in the Mediterranean theater of operations against the Axis powers. In his final chapters, he examines the continuing racial frictions within the Army Air Forces which led to black servicemen protests and riots in 1945 at several installations.
Download or read book Half American written by Matthew F. Delmont and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2024-01-09 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive history of World War II from the African American perspective, by award-winning historian and civil rights expert Winner of the 2023 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Nonfiction A New York Times Notable Book of 2022 A 2022 Book of the Year from TIME, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and more More than one million Black soldiers served in World War II. Black troops were at Normandy, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge, serving in segregated units while waging a dual battle against inequality in the very country for which they were laying down their lives. The stories of these Black veterans have long been ignored, cast aside in favor of the myth of the “Good War” fought by the “Greatest Generation.” And yet without their sacrifices, the United States could not have won the war. Half American is World War II history as you’ve likely never read it before. In these pages are stories of Black military heroes and civil rights icons such as Benjamin O. Davis Jr., the leader of the legendary Tuskegee Airmen, who fought to open the Air Force to Black pilots; Thurgood Marshall, the chief lawyer for the NAACP, who investigated and publicized violence against Black troops and veterans; poet Langston Hughes, who worked as a war correspondent for the Black press; Ella Baker, the civil rights leader who advocated on the home front for Black soldiers, veterans, and their families; and James G. Thompson, the twenty-six-year-old whose letter to a newspaper laying bare the hypocrisy of fighting against fascism abroad when racism still reigned at home set in motion the Double Victory campaign. Their bravery and patriotism in the face of unfathomable racism is both inspiring and galvanizing. An essential and meticulously researched retelling of the war, Half American honors the men and women who dared to fight not just for democracy abroad but for their dreams of a freer and more equal America.
Download or read book The Exclusion of Black Soldiers from the Medal of Honor in World War II written by Elliott V. Converse and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-06-14 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of this study, commissioned by the Army, was to document the process by which the Congressional Medal of Honor was awarded from December 7, 1941, through September 1, 1948; to identify units in which African Americans served; to identify by name all black soldiers whose names were submitted for the medal and to document any errors in the processing of their nominations; and to compile a list of all black soldiers who received the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest award. Based on this work, in January 1997 President Clinton awarded seven African Americans the Medal of Honor. The authors were selected by Shaw University of Raleigh, North Carolina, to conduct this study under a United States Army contract.
Download or read book The African American Experience During World War II written by Neil A. Wynn and published by Rowman & Littlefield Pub Incorporated. This book was released on 2011-09-22 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Synopsis: World War II was crucial in the development of the emerging Civil Rights movement, whether through the economic and social impact of the war, or through demands for equality in the military. This period was characterized by an intense transformation of black hopes and expectations, encouraged by real socio-economic shifts and departures in federal policy. During the war, black self consciousness found powerful expression in new movements such as the "Double V" campaign that linked the fight for democracy at home for the fight for democracy abroad. A half century after the war, this volume presents a much-needed, up-to-date, short and readable interpretation of existing scholarship on the era and its issues. Drawing on more than thirty years of teaching and research, Dr. Wynn pulls together primary sources and locates the war years within the long-term developments of the twentieth century.
Download or read book Fighting for Hope written by Robert F. Jefferson and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2008-11-24 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Integrating social history and civil rights movement studies, Fighting for Hope examines the ways in which political meaning and identity were reflected in the aspirations of these black GIs and their role in transforming the face of America.
Download or read book Enemies in Love written by Alexis Clark and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “New & Noteworthy” selection of The New York Times Book Review “Alexis Clark illuminates a whole corner of unknown World War II history.” —Walter Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci “[A]n irresistible human story. . . . Clark's voice is engaging, and her tale universal.” —Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power and American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House A true and deeply moving narrative of forbidden love during World War II and a shocking, hidden history of race on the home front This is a love story like no other: Elinor Powell was an African American nurse in the U.S. military during World War II; Frederick Albert was a soldier in Hitler's army, captured by the Allies and shipped to a prisoner-of-war camp in the Arizona desert. Like most other black nurses, Elinor pulled a second-class assignment, in a dusty, sun-baked—and segregated—Western town. The army figured that the risk of fraternization between black nurses and white German POWs was almost nil. Brought together by unlikely circumstances in a racist world, Elinor and Frederick should have been bitter enemies; but instead, at the height of World War II, they fell in love. Their dramatic story was unearthed by journalist Alexis Clark, who through years of interviews and historical research has pieced together an astounding narrative of race and true love in the cauldron of war. Based on a New York Times story by Clark that drew national attention, Enemies in Love paints a tableau of dreams deferred and of love struggling to survive, twenty-five years before the Supreme Court's Loving decision legalizing mixed-race marriage—revealing the surprising possibilities for human connection during one of history's most violent conflicts.
Download or read book Fighting in the Jim Crow Army written by Maggi M. Morehouse and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2006-12-28 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fighting in the Jim Crow Army is filled with first-hand accounts of everyday life in 1940s America. The soldiers of the 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions speak of segregation in the military and racial attitudes in army facilities stateside and abroad. The individual battles of black soldiers reveal a compelling tale of discrimination, triumph, resistance, and camaraderie. What emerges from the multitude of voices is a complex and powerful story of individuals who served their country and subsequently made demands to be recognized as full-fledged citizens. Morehouse, whose father served in the 93rd Infantry Division, has built a rich historical account around personal interviews and correspondence with soldiers, National Archive documents, and military archive materials. Augmented with historical and recent photographs, Fighting in the Jim Crow Army combines individual recollections with official histories to form a vivid picture of life in the segregated Army. In the historiography of World War II very little has emerged from the perspective of the black foot soldier. Morehouse allows the participants to tell the tale of the watershed event of their participation in World War II as well as the ongoing black freedom struggle.
Download or read book The Afro American and the Second World War written by Neil A. Wynn and published by Holmes & Meier Publishers. This book was released on 1993 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The definitive account of black Americans in World War II and its aftermath, The Afro-American and the Second World War has been expanded to include the wartime experience of black women, how demographic change reshaped the South, and other issues." "In addition to providing a close look at the African American experience in the armed forces, the author discusses the widespread wartime discrimination at glaring odds with American claims to social equality and democracy; the resulting "war on two fronts" in which black newspapers, literature, and songs reiterated the demand for equal citizenship rights; the psychological impact of the war; and the protest campaigns launched by blacks during these years."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Download or read book Torchbearers of Democracy written by Chad L. Williams and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2010-09-20 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the 380,000 African American soldiers who fought in World War I, Woodrow Wilson's charge to make the world "safe for democracy" carried life-or-death meaning. Chad L. Williams reveals the central role of African American soldiers in the global conflict and how they, along with race activists and ordinary citizens, committed to fighting for democracy at home and beyond. Using a diverse range of sources, Torchbearers of Democracy reclaims the legacy of African American soldiers and veterans and connects their history to issues such as the obligations of citizenship, combat and labor, diaspora and internationalism, homecoming and racial violence, "New Negro" militancy, and African American memories of the war.
Download or read book African Americans and the Pacific War 1941 1945 written by Chris Dixon and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-20 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dixon provides the first comprehensive study of African American military and social experiences during the Pacific War.
Download or read book Fighting for America written by Christopher Paul Moore and published by One World. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The African-American contribution to winning World War II has never been celebrated as profoundly as in Fighting for America. In this inspirational and uniquely personal tribute, the essential part played by black servicemen and -women in that cataclysmic conflict is brought home. Here are letters, photographs, oral histories, and rare documents, collected by historian Christopher Moore, the son of two black WWII veterans. Weaving his family history with that of his people and nation, Moore has created an unforgettable tapestry of sacrifice, fortitude, and courage. From the 1,800 black soldiers who landed at Normandy Beach on D-Day, and the legendary Tuskegee Airmen who won ninety-five Distinguished Flying Crosses, to the 761st Tank Battalion who, under General Patton, helped liberate Nazi death camps, the invaluable effort of black Americans to defend democracy is captured in word and image. Readers will be introduced to many unheralded heroes who helped America win the war, including Dorie Miller, the messman who manned a machine gun and downed four Japanese planes; Robert Brooks, the first American to die in armored battle; Lt. Jackie Robinson, the future baseball legend who faced court-martial for refusing to sit in the back of a military bus; an until now forgotten African-American philosopher who helped save many lives at a Japanese POW camp; even the author’s own parents: his mother, Kay, a WAC when she met his father, Bill, who was part of the celebrated Red Ball Express. Yet Fighting for America is more than a testimonial; it is also a troubling story of profound contradictions, of a country still in the throes of segregation, of a domestic battleground where arrests and riots occurred simultaneously with foreign service–and of how the war helped spotlight this disparity and galvanize the need for civil rights. Featuring a unique perspective on black soldiers, Fighting for America will move any reader: all who, like the author, owe their lives to those who served.
Download or read book The African American Soldier written by Michael L. Lanning and published by Kensington Publishing Corp.. This book was released on 2012-08-24 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than five thousand blacks joined the rebel Americans in the war as soldiers, sailors, and marines; many more supported the rebellion as laborers. Their service went largely unrecognized and unrecorded. Few letters, journals, or other narratives by blacks about the Revolution exist because whites had denied most African Americans an education. White historians of the period, and for years after the war, ignored the contributions and impact of thousands of blacks participants for several reasons. First of all, prejudices were so deeply ingrained that it did not even occur to most whites of the time that blacks had played a significant role either as individuals who fought or labored or as a segment of the population that affected decisions. Prejudices also prevented some who did witness the contributions of African Americans from honestly reporting that blacks could perform equally with whites on the battlefield if given the opportunity. Others did not mention blacks because of the difficulty of explaining why the United States kept half a million men, women, and children enslaved while fighting for independence and liberty." From Defenders of Liberty, by Lt. Col. Michael Lee Lanning (Ret.)
Download or read book Roi Ottley s World War II written by Mark A. Huddle and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2012-08-14 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When black journalist Vincent "Roi" Ottley was assigned to cover the European theater in World War II, he provided a perspective shared by few other war correspondents. But what he really saw has taken more than sixty years to come to light. Already famous as the author of New World A-Coming-in which he decried the hypocrisy of America fighting for freedom in Europe while denying it to blacks at home-Ottley was sent to cover the experiences of African American soldiers that neither white journalists nor the American military felt obliged to report. But while his dispatches documented this assignment, his personal diary reveals a different war-one that included mess hall brawls between Southern white soldiers and their black counterparts, the British public's ignorance toward their own black soldiers, and other subtle glimpses of wartime life that never made it into print. That journal remained buried in a collection of Ottley's papers at St. Bonaventure University until Mark Huddle discovered it in the school's archives. With this book, he offers us a new look at World War II as he brings a forgotten figure out of history's shadow. While Ottley may have had an agenda in his published articles of proving the worth of black soldiers, his diary is rich in personal reflections-from his fears while enduring a bombing raid in London to his true feelings about fellow reporters to his encounters with celebrities such as Ernest Hemingway and Edward R. Murrow. And at every turn Ottley kept a keen eye on race issues, revealing a highly political as well as entertaining writer while reflecting a growing awareness that the African American freedom movement was part of a larger international struggle by peoples of color against Western imperialism. Huddle's introduction frames Ottley's career and contributions, and his annotations throughout the book provide additional context to the reporter's experiences. Huddle also includes thirteen of Ottley's published dispatches to demonstrate the differences between his personal musings and his professional output. The publication of this lost diary restores the reputation of a trailblazing figure, showing that Roi Ottley was both a brilliant writer and one of America's keenest observers of race issues. It offers all readers interested in race relations or World War II a more nuanced picture of life during that conflict from a perspective rarely encountered.
