African Americans at war

African Americans at war. As was the case during the previous wars of the USA, African Americans responded to the nation's involvement in the Second World War with a mixture of patriotic sacrifice and racial militancy. Wartime mobilization offered many opportunities for African Americans to demonstrate, through military service and employment in war industries, that they were loyal to the nation and crucial to its defence. The vulnerability of the USA to external threats from Nazi Germany also provided leverage for blacks seeking to challenge racially discriminatory practices that undermined the nation's unity and democratic self-image. The ‘Double-V’ campaign, initiated by the Pittsburgh Courier in 1942, symbolized the widely held desire of African Americans for victory over fascism abroad and over racism at home. Although some of the racial gains of the Second World War period did not endure after the war, changes in prevailing patterns of racial attitudes and black–white relations caused by wartime exigencies provided a foundation for many of the civil rights advances of the post-war era. In particular, the increasing black militancy of the period provided models for the more extensive racial protests of the 1950s and 1960s.

Even before American entry into the war, some African Americans became actively concerned with international issues. The Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935 became a particularly important cause for blacks because of that nation's symbolic importance as a source of African culture. An International Council of Friends lobbied on behalf of Abyssinia at the League of Nations, and black Americans raised funds to aid the beleaguered African kingdom. As fascism spread in Europe, some black leftists joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and fought on behalf of the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War.

In 1941, while the nation debated its role in the expanding European war, the March on Washington Movement (MOWM), under the leadership of the black labour leader A. Philip Randolph, made visible the widespread discontent of blacks facing racial discrimination in employment. Resentment was most acute in union-controlled fields, where some affiliates in the American Federation of Labour maintained rules against black membership. After mobilizing support for the march in black communities throughout the nation, Randolph called off the threatened march shortly before its scheduled start in June 1941, when Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 8802 establishing a Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) within the Office of Production Management. The new committee, the result of the first presidential executive order on behalf of blacks since the Civil War, was mandated to ensure ‘full and equitable participation of all workers in the defense industries, without discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin.’ Although the FEPC did not become permanent until after the war, and had little power to enforce its rulings or to combat segregation in the military, the planned march demonstrated the potential impact of mass activism as a means of achieving racial gains. For several years thereafter the MOWM remained in existence and continued to pressure government officials.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, black leaders generally supported the war effort even while continuing to speak out against racial discrimination. Although the Selective Service Act of 1940 prohibited discrimination in the administration of the draft and in the training of soldiers (see selective service system), the War Department refused to allow integrated military units on the grounds that it would undermine the morale of white soldiers. In September 1940 Randolph and other black leaders spoke out against these discriminatory policies, but they had little success. When the USA entered the war, there were only about 5,000 black enlisted men and only a few dozen black officers.

Despite wartime manpower shortages, military leaders remained reluctant to use blacks as officers or in combat roles, relenting somewhat only towards the end of the war. Because military leaders resisted the idea of an integrated military, black recruits were less likely to be accepted in military service, and when accepted they were assigned to segregated units that were represented in disproportionately large numbers in particular branches and arms, such as the army's Quartermaster Corps and Engineer Corps. The 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions and the 2nd Cavalry Division became the largest concentrations of black soldiers. The US Navy had traditionally employed blacks only in servile roles, and did not accept black volunteers or conscripts until Roosevelt's Executive Order No. 9279, issued in December 1942, forced all services to end such restrictions. Even after this presidential order, more than 95% of the blacks in the navy served as messmen, and the WAVES refused to accept black women until forced to do so at the end of 1944. In July 1945 a small group of black WAVES was accepted for training at Hunter College Naval Training School. The Army Air Corps (Army Air Forces from June 1941) resisted accepting blacks until it was compelled to include a few black squadrons; even then most of these squadrons were assigned to airfield maintenance. The 99th Fighter Squadron, a black unit trained at a segregated facility at Tuskegee, Alabama, and deployed in the Mediterranean in April 1943, was the first group of black pilots to see action during the war, and only three other such squadrons would see action before it ended. Such racial restrictions led to the resignation in January 1943 of former federal judge William H. Hastie, the black civilian aide to the secretary of war. In his resignation statement, Hastie condemned the military's ‘reactionary’ policies that continued to view integrated forces as an experiment likely to fail and that restricted black service in the air command to a few segregated units. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson defended military policies regarding the deployment of black soldiers. He asserted that they were less capable of handling modern weapons, a claim that was hotly disputed by the black press and by Hastie's successor as civilian aide, Truman K. Gibson.

Only as the war continued and casualties mounted did military leaders gradually accept the idea of using black units in combat. Black soldiers who served overseas discovered that their roles were limited to support activities, usually under the command of white officers. Thus, when the 2nd Cavalry arrived in North Africa in March 1944, it was deactivated as a combat unit and black soldiers in it were assigned to service roles. In the Pacific war black marines assigned to work at ammunition depots in the South Pacific came under fire and found themselves pressed into the battle for Iwo Jima.

Despite such racial barriers, blacks made limited advances towards equality in the military. They were admitted to officer training schools in all the armed services, studying with white officer candidates in a few instances. By the end of 1944, increasing opportunities for promotion had led to the commissioning of more than 5,000 black soldiers, including the promotion of one, Benjamin O. Davis of the Inspector General's Department to brig-general. By this time there were more than 700,000 blacks serving in the US Army (see Table) with more than half overseas. An additional 165,000 were in the navy, 5,000 in the coast guard, and 17,000 in the marine corps.

The 99th Fighter Squadron performed well in the Italian campaign, and 761st Tank Battalion was commended for its service in the Ardennes campaign. In the 614th Tank Destroyer Battalion, which fought in north-west Europe, 8 soldiers won the Silver Star for distinguished service, 28 won the Bronze Star, and 79 won the Purple Heart (see decorations). Yet, the burden of fighting racism in the military at the same time as the nation's foreign enemies often hampered the effectiveness of black units. African American soldiers often gave expression to their resentment of racial discrimination in the services. When white soldiers in the UK tried to impose segregation at recreational facilities, black soldiers responded with angry clashes that sometimes grew into riots. Black soldiers in Salina, Kansas, were angered when they were barred from eating at a restaurant that served German prisoners-of-war. In July 1944 at Port Chicago, California, several hundred black seamen loaders refused to return to the docks after an ammunition explosion killed more than 300 people. Despite criticism from the black press and civil rights leaders, 44 soldiers were tried and convicted of mutiny and given sentences ranging from eight to fifteen years' hard labour. Mutinies and racial conflicts also occurred at numerous other military bases, including major clashes at Mabry Field, Florida, and Brookley Field, Alabama, in May 1944, at Camp Claiborn, Louisiana, in August 1944, and in Hawaii early in 1945.

In January 1945, encouraged by reports that black soldiers had performed well, the War Department initiated a plan to recruit black volunteers who would be assigned to platoons that would fight alongside white combat units in north-west Europe. In order to be eligible for the experiment, blacks had to gain high scores on the Army General Classification Test, and black non-commissioned officers were allowed to participate only if they accepted demotion. More than 5,000 black soldiers volunteered for such assignments, and 2,500 were trained in platoons led by white officers. A military study of the effectiveness of the black platoons later concluded that they performed very well in the opinion of most white officers, a finding that was disparaged by many military leaders. Segregation would remain the basic policy of the military until 1948, when President Truman issued an executive order calling for equal treatment and opportunity for black servicemen.

Race relations on the home front during the war followed patterns similar to those in the military—the gradual overcoming of pervasive discriminatory policies in the utilization of black skills combined with numerous instances of racial militancy and violent black–white conflicts. The Communist Party of the United States, once in the vanguard of racial advancement efforts in the 1930s, was displaced by other organizations such as the anti-communist and all-black MOWM that were less willing to compromise civil rights concerns in order to support the war effort. In addition to the MOWM, groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Urban League attempted to eliminate discriminatory practices through lobbying and litigation. The Supreme Court's decision in Smith V. Allwright ( 1944) invalidating white primary elections that excluded blacks was the most significant NAACP victory during the war years. A series of meetings involving black and white southerners culminated in 1944 with the establishment of the Southern Regional Council, a group dedicated to racial reform. While most leaders of mainstream racial advancement organizations abjured mass protest during the war, black and white advocates of direct action protest, including a few veterans of MOWM, banded together in 1943 to form the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). CORE activists in several northern cities staged small-scale sit-ins protesting against segregation in restaurants and other public facilities. While CORE was active mainly in the North, the Southern Negro Youth Congress, founded in 1937, kept alive a tradition of anti-segregation agitation in the South. Among the few black organizations that actively opposed the war effort was the Nation of Islam, a small Islamic group advocating racial separatism. The group's leader, Elijah Muhammad, went to prison rather than serve in the military.

White resentment of the modest black employment gains of the war years led to several major outbreaks of violence. In 1943, after large numbers of blacks had migrated to Detroit to fill industrial jobs, white workers staged a strike to protest against the promotion of some blacks to more skilled jobs at the Packard Motor Plant. On 20 June a small fight escalated into a major race riot involving white mobs attacking blacks. Roosevelt declared a state of emergency and sent federal troops to the city. Twenty-five blacks and nine whites were killed. A less serious race riot occurred at the Mobile, Alabama, shipyard after black workers were upgraded. Later in the summer, disaffected blacks in Harlem, New York City, attacked police and white businesses before the uprising was suppressed by police and State Guard troops. In other communities, whites attacked uniformed black soldiers.

African Americans at War: Quarterly strength of African Americans, by category, in US Army and percentage of total strength of the Army, December 1941–December 1945

Quarter of month	Male Officers	Enlisted Men	Nurses	Dietitians	Physical Therapists	Warrant Officers	Flight Officers	WAAC and WAC	Total African Americans	Total Strength of the Army	Per cent of African Americans	African American Enlisted Personnel	Total Enlisted Personnel	Per cent of African Americans Enlisted to Total Enlisted
								Officers	Enlisted
Source: Lee, V., US Army in World War Two: The Employment of Negro Troops (Washington, 1966).
1941
December	462	98,686	45	0	0	13	0	0	0	99,206	1,685,403	5.88	98,686	1,562,256	6.32
1942
March	534	142,967	45	0	0	10	0	0	0	143,556	2,387,746	6.01	142,967	2,236,547	6.39
June	594	178,032	76	0	0	6	0	0	0	178,708	3,074,184	5.81	178,032	2,867,762	6.21
September	1,525	253,952	44	0	0	24	0	0	0	255,545	3,971,016	6.44	253,952	3,673,876	6.91
December	1,921	397,246	81	0	0	26	0	19	161	399,454	5,397,674	7.40	397,407	5,000,275	7.95
1943
March	2,687	498,956	165	0	0	90	0	65	2,467	504,430	6,508,854	7.75	501,423	6,010,032	8.34
June	3,358	548,319	158	4	1	166	9	105	3,056	555,176	6,993,102	7.94	551,375	6,413,526	8.60
September	3,859	589,253	195	8	1	336	0	105	2,907	596,664	7,273,784	8.20	592,160	6,622,951	8.94
December	4,475	625,449	198	9	1	507	4	103	2,702	633,448	7,482,434	8.47	628,151	6,790,754	9.25
1944
March	4,690	663,164	219	10	2	603	14	115	3,060	671,877	7,757,629	8.66	666,224	7,021,758	9.49
June	4,949	689,565	213	8	2	636	32	117	3,389	698,911	7,992,868	8.74	692,954	7,215,888	9.60
September	4,728	692,229	247	9	2	613	84	121	3,645	701,678	8,108,129	8.65	695,874	7,293,480	9.54
December	5,027	681,376	256	9	6	656	151	120	3,920	691,521	8,052,693	8.59	685,296	7,212,210	9.50
1945
March	5,073	684,097	336	7	9	685	234	115	3,787	694,343	8,157,386	8.51	687,884	7,288,292	9.44
June	5,411	684,091	464	9	11	682	301	117	3,732	694,818	8,266,373	8.41	687,823	7,374,710	9.33
September	5,718	642,719	466	8	10	592	312	105	3,633	653,563	7,564,514	8.64	646,352	6,679,773	9.68
December	3,799	366,016	318	8	7	306	225	80	1,610	372,369	4,228,936	8.81	367,626	3,572,577	10.29

After the Second World War, as with previous wars, many black soldiers returning home with a new sense of militancy encountered resistance from whites determined to return race relations to earlier patterns. In the South, there were many instances of violence directed against returning black soldiers, attacks intended to keep the race ‘in its place’. Some of the wartime employment gains were also reversed as white soldiers returned expecting to resume civilian jobs. Nevertheless, the war led to enduring changes in American race relations. The idealism associated with the fight against fascism led many white Americans to oppose racial practices that contradicted the nation's professed political ideals.

In addition, the wartime experiences of Americans established a foundation for future changes in race relations by prompting massive migrations of blacks to urban areas. In the West and Midwest, large numbers of blacks assumed new employment roles. Although the First World War era is often described as a period of massive black migration from the South, net migration of non-whites out of the South during the 1940s was far larger than during the 1910s, totaling more than 1.5 million. During and immediately after the Second World War, housing shortages and competition for jobs led to greater racial conflicts in some cities, but increasing urbanization and upward mobility fostered the emergence of a new generation of black activists who would play leading roles in stimulating the civil rights upsurge of the 1950s and 1960s. The publication of Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma in 1944 reflected the widespread realization that overt racial barriers were not only contrary to the ‘American Creed’ but also inconsistent with the increasing geographic mobility of blacks and their increasing participation in the US economy.

Clayborne Carson

Bibliography

Buchanan, A. R. , Black Americans in World War II (Santa Barbara, Cal., 1977).
James, C. L. R. et al. , Fighting Racism in World War II (New York, 1980).
MacGregor, M. J. Jr. , Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940–1965 (Washington, DC, 1981).
Motley, M. P. (ed.), The Invisible Soldier: The Experience of the Black Soldier, World War II (Detroit, 1975).