World War Two - African-Americans
Click here to read a history of African-Americans between the years 1619 through 1939.
-from Amazon:
Black author Richard Wright (1908 – 1960) clearly delineated for the readers of Coronet why African American participation in W.W. II was of great importance to the Black community. The editors at Yank (an Army possession) seldom wrote about the Marines - and they loved dissing their weekly magazine, The Leatherneck. However, they did recognize an historic moment when they saw one. As remarked in another article on this site, the Navy was the most prejudiced of all the branches of service, and the Marines had previously rejected all Black recruits, but that changed in 1942, and this article served to introduce their readers to this consequential lot. The first African American Marines trained at Camp Montford Point in Jacksonville, NC from August 26, 1942 until the camp was decommissioned in 1949. The greatest number of black Marines to serve in combat during the Second World War was during the Battle of Okinawa (2,000 strong). The brainiac who wrote the Jim Crow rules for the U.S. Army officer corps forgot to segregate the officer's clubs. Mess Attendant 2nd Class Dorie Miller had never handled a machine gun, yet he shot down four Japanese planes in twenty minutes, rescued the captain of the USS West Virginia and saved a dozen men from drowning.
Read about an African-American from the First World War...
On the very first day of America's participation in World War II, an African American sailor at Pearl Harbor named Dorrie Miller shot down four enemy planes and saved 12 men from drowning. One would think that this would make the gang on capitol Hill sit up and realize that the war would be shorter if other men of a similar hue could be released upon our enemies, but this was not the case. Very few American blacks were permitted to fight and this article serves as a testimony to their frustration. Here is a small notice concerning the Office of War Information and the steps they took during the Summer of 1942 to ensure the patriotic enthusiasm of the African-American community in the war effort:
"Two well-known Negro newspapermen have been selected to supervise the gathering and issuance of Negro news. The head of the new division - still untitled - will be Ted Poston, former New York newspaperman. He will be assisted by [filmmaker] William D. Alexander [who will make newsreels]."
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