(Courtesy Wikipedia Commons)
(Note to reader: I wrote a short history of African-Americans in World War II and their treatment for a class in my Master's program. This is the text of my writing.)
World War II affected African Americans in many ways. Not only did the war affect African American males, but females as well. There are major differences in how the war affected specifically the African American race different from the white race. Blacks fought for double victory, victory over fascism and victory over racism in their own country. There were major cultural, social, and economic shifts in the lives of black soldiers in the United States. They were not wanted in many different aspects of the war.
Because segregation still existed in the United States during the time of World War II, African Americans were not even allowed in certain armed services. For instance, in the Navy, blacks were only accepted as mess attendants. Many blacks in the service did do a lot for the war effort, which was not recognized at the time. Let’s take a look at a few examples.
One project was the Ledo Road, which involved about 60 percent of black Americans helping to build the 1,000-mile road from Ledo, India to Kunming, China. Another was the Alcan Highway, also known as the Alaska-Canada Highway, which was built to defend and resupply airfields on the Alaskan coast. It stretched 1,600 miles from Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Delta Junction, Alaska. It was built by 11,000 soldiers of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, a third of these being African American soldiers. They were organized into three black regiments, the 93rd Engineer General Service Regiment, the 95th Engineer General Service Regiment, and the 97th Engineer General Service Regiment.
Not only were black American males involved in the war effort but females as well. 855 African American women were selected to travel overseas to England and France to help with distributing mail to servicemen around the world. From February 1945 to March of 1946, African American women of the 6888 Central Postal Directory Battalion distributed this mail in warehouses. They were not looked upon highly by the white officers that worked above them. They were not wanted but did their job regardless because they realized how important it was to boost the moral of the servicemen while fighting in the field when they received a letter from a loved one.
The most famous of fighting outfits during World War II concerning African Americans was the Tuskegee Airmen. They consisted of the 332nd Expeditionary Operations Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the United States Army Air Forces. They were the first African American flyers in the United States Armed Services and were subjected to discrimination inside and outside the army because of racial segregation that existed within most of the military and federal government.
Because of World War II, many African Americans demanded social rights after the war because many had risked their lives, like many white Americans. Major attacks against discrimination and segregation occurred all over the country, including the Jim Crow South. The NAACP became emboldened because of the service of black Americans on a big scale during the war. They began to earn a more equal place in society because of their service during the war. A pattern of migration occurred for about twenty years after the war in which as many as 1.5 million African Americans left the south for jobs in the north in the 1940s. The cause of this shift was more jobs in the north and less racial discrimination.
Thanks for learning!
Chet Wallace
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