African Americans in World War Ii - 997 Words

For many African Americans, the war offered an opportunity to get out of the cycle of crushing rural poverty. Black joined the military in large numbers, escaping a decade of Depression and tenant farming in the South and Midwest. Yet, like the rest of America in the 1940s, the armed forces were segregated. The Army accepted black enlistees but created separate black infantry regiments and assigned white commanders to them. Of the more than 2.5 million African Americans who registered for the draft in WWII, about 900,000 served in the Army. But about only 50,000 African Americans were allowed to serve in combat. African-American soldiers and civilians fought a two-front battle during World War II. There was the enemy overseas, and also†¦show more content†¦For at least one serviceman from Wichita, Kansas, the irony of being asked to die for a country that denied him basic civil rights was too much. James Thompson wrote to the Pittsburg Courier, and asked â€Å"Should I sacrifice to live ‘half American?† The newspaper responded by calling for a â€Å"Double V† campaign. The campaign borrowed on the well-known two-finger â€Å"V for Victory† salute from Winston Churchill. The paper proclaimed that blacks should work for the victory of democracy both at home and abroad. The Double V campaign caught on. Civil rights leaders such as A. Philip Randolph saw the unique situation created by World War II and the acute need for workers as an opportunity to demand equality. In 1941 Randolph threatened President Roosevelt with a 100,000-person march on Washington, D.C., to protest job discrimination. In response, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, prohibiting discrimination in defense jobs or the government. On the home front, the U.S. government desperately needed workers to fill newly created defense jobs and factory positions left open by soldiers who had left to fight. More than two million African Americans went to work for defense plants, and another two million joined the federal civil service. As these new opportunities drew more and more African Americans into cities, they opened the way for economic mobility. As the war dragged on, it affected American society at nearly every level. It shook upShow MoreRelatedAfrican Americans During World War II921 Words   |  4 Pages442nd Infantry Throughout American history many minority groups have experienced discrimination. One of these groups was the Japanese-Americans, especially during World War II. In this essay, I will be focusing on a segregated Japanese-American combat unit known as the 442nd Infantry to highlight the discrimination suffered by Japanese-American soldiers. After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, The United States declared war against Japan and joined the Second World War. 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