African Americans have long used the military for gaining legitimacy and the ultimate path to citizenship. Blacks in the Military and Beyond chronicles their tumultuous journey from slavery through the present, extending the history to significant factors in determining whether or not serving in the military has indeed advantaged Blacks.
In April 1917, Congress approved President Woodrow Wilson's request to declare war on the Central Powers, thrusting the United States into World War I with the rallying cry, "The world must be made safe for democracy." Two months later 1,250 African American men--college graduates, businessmen, doctors, lawyers, reverends and non-commissioned officers--volunteered to become the first blacks to receive officer training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. Denied the full privileges and protections of democracy at home, they prepared to defend it abroad in hopes that their service would be rewarded with equal citizenship at war's end. This book tells the stories of these black American soldiers' lives during training, in combat and after their return home. The author addresses issues of national and international racism and equality and discusses the Army's use of African American troops, the creation of a segregated officer training camp, the war's implications for civil rights in America, and military duty as an obligation of citizenship.
Today, the military is one the most racially diverse institutions in the United States. But for many decades African American soldiers battled racial discrimination and segregation within its ranks. In the years after World War II, the integration of the armed forces was a touchstone in the homefront struggle for equality—though its importance is often overlooked in contemporary histories of the civil rights movement. Drawing on a wide array of sources, from press reports and newspapers to organizational and presidential archives, historian Christine Knauer recounts the conflicts surrounding black military service and the fight for integration. Let Us Fight as Free Men shows that, even after their service to the nation in World War II, it took the persistent efforts of black soldiers, as well as civilian activists and government policy changes, to integrate the military. In response to unjust treatment during and immediately after the war, African Americans pushed for integration on the strength of their service despite the oppressive limitations they faced on the front and at home. Pressured by civil rights activists such as A. Philip Randolph, President Harry S. Truman passed an executive order that called for equal treatment in the military. Even so, integration took place haltingly and was realized only after the political and strategic realities of the Korean War forced the Army to allow black soldiers to fight alongside their white comrades. While the war pushed the civil rights struggle beyond national boundaries, it also revealed the persistence of racial discrimination and exposed the limits of interracial solidarity. Let Us Fight as Free Men reveals the heated debates about the meaning of military service, manhood, and civil rights strategies within the African American community and the United States as a whole.
In April 1917, Congress approved President Woodrow Wilson's request to declare war on the Central Powers, thrusting the United States into World War I with the rallying cry, "The world must be made safe for democracy." Two months later 1,250 African American men--college graduates, businessmen, doctors, lawyers, reverends and non-commissioned officers--volunteered to become the first blacks to receive officer training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. Denied the full privileges and protections of democracy at home, they prepared to defend it abroad in hopes that their service would be rewarded with equal citizenship at war's end. This book tells the stories of these black American soldiers' lives during training, in combat and after their return home. The author addresses issues of national and international racism and equality and discusses the Army's use of African American troops, the creation of a segregated officer training camp, the war's implications for civil rights in America, and military duty as an obligation of citizenship.
"In this important, sophisticated, and original study, Chad Williams establishes the centrality of black soldiers and veterans to the struggles against racial inequality during World War I as no other book does. Torchbearers of Democracy sensitively examines the fraught connections between citizenship, obligation, and race while highlighting the diversity of black soldiers' experiences in fighting on behalf of a democracy that denied them rights and dignity. This is a major contribution to political, military, and civil rights history."--Eric Arnesen, George Washington University.
CMH Pub 50-1-1. Defense Studies Series. Discusses the evolution of the services' racial policies and practices between World War II and 1965 during the period when black servicemen and women were integrated into the Nation's military units.
Emiel Owens served his country in the 777th Field Artillery, involved in actions from Omaha Beach to the occupation army in the Philippines. Like the rest of the U.S. Army at the time, the 777th was a segregated unit. Remarkably few memoirs by African Americans have been published from the World War II era, making Owens's account especially valuable. Because he situates his military experience in the larger context of his life and the society in which he lived, his story also reveals much about the changing racial climate of the last several decades. A native Texan, Owens recounts his early experiences in a small, rural school outside Austin during the hard times of the Depression. In 1943, he was drafted into the army, landing in England in August 1944. Ten days later he was on Omaha Beach. By November 3 Owens and his unit were supporting the 30th Infantry Division as it attacked German towns and cities leading into the Ruhr Pocket and the Huertgen Forest. Owens starkly portrays the horror of the Kohlscheid Penetration. He was awarded a certificate of merit for his actions in that theater. With help from the G.I. bill, Owens returned to college and then to graduate school at Ohio State University, since universities in his home state were still closed to African Americans. He earned a Ph.D. in economics, which led to a productive academic and consulting career. This is a uniquely captivating story of an African American man's journey from a segregated Texas town to the battlefields of Europe and on to postwar success in a world changed forever by the war Americans--black and white--had fought.
