View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Carolina Digital Repository PRELUDE TO A REVOLUTION: AFRICAN-AMERICAN WORLD WAR II VETERANS, DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS, AND CIVIL RIGHTS 1940-1955 Sarah Ayako Barksdale A dissertation I submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the History Department in the College of Arts and Sciences. Chapel Hill 2014 Approved by: Richard H. Kohn Joseph T. Glatthaar Adriane Lentz-Smith Crystal Feimster Benjamin Waterhouse ©2014 Sarah Ayako Barksdale ALL RIGHTS RESERVED i “A New, radical Negro spirit has been born in France, which leaves us older radicals far behind. Thousands of young black men have offered their lives for the Lilies of France and they return ready to offer them again for the Sun-flowers of Afro-America.” -W.E.B. Du Bois, The Crisis, June 1919 ii ABSTRACT Sarah Barksdale: Prelude to a Revolution (Under the direction of Richard H. Kohn) This dissertation examines and analyzes the experiences of African-American servicemen in World War II through the lens of double consciousness. I argue that the black experience in the U.S. military at home and overseas, as troops encountered different cultures and places, changed and raised consciousness for black troops. In turn, this altered consciousness contributed to racial progress and new attitudes on the homefront upon their return. In the postwar period, veterans employed increasingly militant forms of protest, spearheaded a variety of desegregation efforts, and improved organizational efforts in the black community. Using an interdisciplinary approach to this topic, I incorporate oral testimonies from black veterans, the theory of double consciousness, and elements of contemporary black literature to articulate the prevailing consciousness within the black community in general and veterans in particular. The study makes a critical connection between the Second World War and the civil rights movement. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to begin by thanking my adviser, Richard H. Kohn, for his mentorship, guidance, edits (frustrating as this could be at times), and patience throughout this process. Having seen others undertake this passage with less active advisers, I know that I could not have finished without such an exceptional guide. My committee members as well for their cooperation and recommendations throughout, and the History Department staff for their consistent backing. And my colleagues at UNC for their feedback and friendship. In the past seven years I have received a great deal of assistance from a number of organizations. First, the University of North Carolina, particularly the History Department and the Royster Society of Fellows. As a Reynolds Fellow for the first five years at UNC, the society provided me with the means to conduct my research and move forward in the process unencumbered by other responsibilities. The society’s support has been invaluable. I also want to thank the Army Center for Military History, the German Historical Institute, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense Historical Office for their assistance at various stages of research and writing. And again, my colleagues and mentors at each of these places for their guidance and support. Lastly, I want to thank my parents for their patience, love, and encouragement throughout this process. The rest of my family and close friends I include in this as well (and of course, the Fuzz). Thank you for all of your love and support: periodically putting a roof over my head, always lending a hand in anything from moving to resuscitating my struggling automobile, and keeping me sane and loved through frequently stressful periods. All my love and thanks. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………………….. vi CHAPTER 1: THE DILEMMA: AFRICAN-AMERICAN TROOPS ON THE HOMEFRONT……………………………………………………………………. 1 CHAPTER 2: A JIM-CROW REEDUCATION: AFRICAN-AMERICAN TROOPS IN EUROPE……………………………………………………………………… 64 CHAPTER 3: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST: AFRICAN-AMERICAN TROOPS IN THE PACIFIC, DISMANTLING WHITE SUPREMACY………………….. 116 CHAPTER 4: “WE RETURN FROM FIGHTING,” DEMOBILIZATION AND THE ENIGMA OF BLACK MILITARY SERVICE………………………………… 158 CHAPTER 5: THE DESCENT TO HELL: AFRICAN-AMERICAN VETERANS TRANSGRESS BOUNDARIES AND UNWRITTEN LAWS……………… 204 CHAPTER 6: CONTESTING INVISIBILITY: BLACK VETERANS ORGANIZE…………………………………………………………………………………. 253 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………………... 302 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………318 v Introduction And as I groped in darkness and felt the pain of millions, gradually, like day driving night across the continent, I saw dawn upon them like the sun a vision of a time when all men walk proudly through the earth and the bombs and missiles lie at the bottom of the ocean . Then washed in the brightness of this vision, I saw how in its radiance would grow and be nourished and suddenly burst into terrible and splendid bloom the blood-red flower of revolution. “Roses and Revolutions” (1948, excerpts)1 Dudley Randall In 1943, African-American poet Dudley Randall entered the U.S. Army Air Forces. Although a draftee, Randall explained that in World War II, troops felt “we were fighting for something . we were fighting against fascism.” He trained in Greensboro, North Carolina before moving to the Pacific as part of a segregated signal corps headquarters detachment. His unit spent its time overseas in a heavy construction detail; the men dug up trees, built camps and officer’s quarters, and erected telephone lines for airfields. The experience endured in Randall’s memory, and he gathered a great deal of material for his poetry. “I remember going on a ship across the Pacific Ocean and seeing flying fish,” wrote Randall. “I remember seeing the islands 1 Dudley Randall, Roses and Revolutions: The Selected Writings of Dudley Randall, ed. Melba Joyce Boyd (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2009), 33. vi and seeing New Caledonia with houses pink and white and green against the hillside, and butterflies as big as brightly colored birds, flying over palm trees. And I marveled at the wonderful variety in nature.” Randall also vividly recalled the civilians in the Pacific, the French speaking New Caledonians. “I met the people who lived there and it opened my eyes to the wonder and the beauty and the variety of the world.”2 After the war, Randall returned to Detroit, Michigan. “When I returned to the United States, I was eager to go to college,” he revealed. Prior to the war, he and his family lacked the resources for higher education. The G.I. Bill provided that opportunity, and Randall described it as a “wonderful thing because it helped a whole class of people who would not have had the chance to get a college education.” He used the benefits to attend Wayne University and study English literature and Russian language. In college, Randall entered the Miles Poetry Workshop and established himself as a poet with his first publication in 1948, “Roses and Revolutions.” He graduated with a degree in English literature the following year, and went on to become a prolific civil rights poet and publisher during the Black Arts Movement.3 Randall’s wartime experiences shaped his life in some crucial respects. He gained a new understanding of people and places. The postwar benefits provided him with opportunities that might otherwise have remained out of reach. In “Roses and Revolutions,” Randall depicted a darkness that descended upon the earth and he portrayed the African-American plight. He detailed the dawning of a new consciousness, and predicted that this burgeoning vision of equality would someday produce a revolution. It is difficult to pinpoint when Randall ceased to grope in the darkness, as he put it. Perhaps when he witnessed the 1943 Detroit race riots, or 2 Melba Joyce Boyd, Wrestling with the Muse: Dudley Randall and the Broadside Press (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 66; Randall, Roses and Revolutions, 4-7. 3 Boyd, Wrestling with the Muse, 67. vii during his time abroad, or when he returned home and beheld the attacks on black veterans in 1946. At some point, these wartime experiences produced a new consciousness, essential to his future in the struggle.4 More than a million African-American servicemen served in a segregated military during the Second World War. The experience changed and raised consciousness and produced new worldviews for many black troops and affected the civil rights struggles after the war. As African-American servicemen moved overseas and experienced combat, new cultures and places, and interacted with unfamiliar peoples, their horizons expanded. For troops that remained in the United States, the evident paradox of serving in a segregated military while waging a war for freedom, liberty, and democracy affected them in other respects. Despite the diversity of experiences, the shifting social landscapes that World War II created changed them. Some African-American servicemen returned to civilian life infuriated by the discrimination, debasement, and mistreatment of military life. Others returned with a new sense of the world; their time abroad altered their understandings of race relations and reeducated them about acceptable social interactions. These experiences left the veterans better prepared to carry on a struggle back home. When African-American veterans reentered civilian society, they found that they often lacked access to certain citizenship benefits that should have been accorded to them as veterans. In response, black veterans fought to establish themselves as legitimate veterans and obtain those benefits which should have been automatic. They performed (conscious and unconscious) public 4 Randall’s activism represents a different region and mode of activism than many of those discussed herein. A Northerner, he became active in the Black Arts Movement and worked to articulate an emergent type of black nationalism and the form of the burgeoning civil rights movement. Veterans like Randall, John O.