Reporting America’s “Colour Problem”: How the U.S. and British Press Reported and Framed Racial Conflicts during World War II A dissertation presented to the faculty of the Scripps College of Communication of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Pamela E. Walck August 2015 © 2015 Pamela E. Walck. All Rights Reserved. This dissertation titled Reporting America's "Colour Problem": How the U.S. and British Press Reported and Framed Racial Conflicts during World War II by PAMELA E. WALCK has been approved for the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism and the Scripps College of Communication by Michael S. Sweeney Professor of Journalism Scott Titsworth Dean, Scripps College of Communication ii Abstract WALCK, PAMELA E., Ph.D., August 2015, Journalism Reporting America's "Colour Problem": How the U.S. and British Press Reported and Framed Racial Conflicts during World War II Director of Dissertation: Michael S. Sweeney Race and ideologies of racial supremacy were at the very heart of World War II. U.S. troops did not have to look far to see how race influenced the American war machine as the country’s military policies required African American and white troops to be processed, trained, and stationed at separate but supposedly equal installations across the country. Race determined whether one carried a rifle or drove a supply truck; operated the naval big guns or loaded munitions into Liberty-class ships; and even whether you would deploy or not. This study took an historical look at how the media reported race and race relations in a war fought over race. Specifically, it examined three events in the United States: the Detroit race riots, Harlem riots, and the Port Chicago explosion; and three incidents in the United Kingdom: the first racial incident in Antrim, Northern Ireland, the mutiny at Bamber Bridge, and the Bristol race riots, to reveal how mainstream newspapers and the American black press reported these events. Through an extensive examination of news coverage in twenty-four newspapers, U.S. and British government and military documents, and oral histories, this study examines how race was reported and framed in the media—and attempts to demonstrate how those frames and newspaper routines expand our understanding of race and race relations during this critical period of history. iii This study found that often the mainstream media in both nations downplayed race—or at the very least attempted to minimize it—during major news events, unless it was impossible to ignore. Sometimes this effort to curtail the role of race came from overt pressure from the government, as it was with the British press. Other times, news workers self-censored for fear that images of violence between Americans would fuel the Axis propaganda machine. Still other times, wartime censors severely delayed news reports. This study also found differences in how the U.S. and British press reported domestic incidents, particularly in terms of volume and tone of coverage. iv Preface Wilbur Dickens was ninety-two years old when he joined eighty-five other World War II veterans and their family members—all part of the Anzio Beachhead Veterans Association—as they toured Fort Stewart on a warm, sunny South Georgia day in April 2009. The Tifton, Georgia, man was hard to miss in his tan, light wool WWII army uniform. It was still in mint condition and fit Dickens well, despite the many years on his aged frame that now required a wheelchair for him to move about. A young African American soldier, Private First Class Jason Davis, had been “volun-told” to escort Dickens that day as the group of WWII veterans moved from gun-range to Warriors Walk—a series of sidewalks on post lined with hundreds of Eastern redbuds, each tree honoring Third Infantry Division men and women who had made the ultimate sacrifice in America’s War on Terror in Iraq or Afghanistan. The visit ended with all the pomp and circumstance of a formal military ceremony on Cottrell Field, where Colonel Chuck Sexton addressed his troops of the Second Brigade Combat Team who were preparing for yet another deployment to Iraq that November. “Hitler bragged he would sweep the Americans back into the sea. He promised another victory for fascism. But he was wrong. Dead wrong,” said Sexton, of the costly, three-month effort on the beaches of Italy in the early months of 1944.1 The commander went on to note that in a victory “purchased in blood” these frail, old men were once strong, fierce warriors who had “spent time in hell.”2 Sexton then thanked the Greatest Generation, reminding them that the young men and women in uniform before them were a lasting part of their legacy. There was hardly a dry eye in the parade stands. As a military reporter for the daily newspaper in nearby Savannah, I remember my own struggle to hold back tears—to remain the professional, impartial observer—all the while knowing that statistically speaking, many of the elderly men standing on the field that day would likely not be alive when the brigade deployed seven months later. Even fewer would be living when the unit returned stateside twelve months after that.3 Events such as these always lured my mind to thoughts of my own paternal grandfather who had served in the China-Burma-India Campaign and had not—at the time of my reporting in 2009—become one of those statistics, one of hundreds of WWII veterans lost to the grave each day. Sexton was correct. The young men and women of every race, color, and creed standing before them that day on Cottrell Field were indeed a part of a rich military heritage and legacy. But it is hard to ignore the harsh reality of that period in history: that the sacrifices made by hundreds of thousands of African American veterans during WWII have gone largely unheralded. That even in popular memory the African American experiences of WWII lack any sense of conformity to the ideals of white heroism and sacrifice4 that are fused into popular American culture through books, movies, and even video games. A Patriotic Sense of Place For the last two years of my doctoral program, two round, silver-colored charms have hung around my neck on a military dog-tag chain. One, a round, aluminum disc with the unit numbers faintly hammered out with a nail head, bears the name of my paternal grandmother’s father who fought across France during World War I. The second, a good luck charm from Santa Ana, California, is stamped with the name of my father’s vi dad, who was a radio operator with the Twenty-Third Fighter Squadron—more commonly known as the Flying Tigers—in the CBI. Both family heirlooms have traveled with me from presidential libraries and national archives in the U.S. to public records offices and tiny villages across the U.K. Growing up I can remember my grandfather occasionally telling my brothers and me stories about his WWII service. He told tell us about the time he had the privilege of holding Joe DiMaggio’s ankles during physical training at Fort Ord, California. (A lifelong Philadelphia Phillies fan, even he felt honored by assisting the New York Yankees legend.) Other times, he would pull out this old, beaten-up scrapbook filled with black and white photos of exotic places such as Hong Kong and Shanghai. Or he’d talk about how he and his buddy pooled their money to purchase a used typewriter so they could practice after hours while based in Kansas City for their MOS (military occupational skill) training. Or how one of his daily practices—along with others on the airfield—was to pause from his job to count the number of planes returning to the muddy airstrip following a firefight with the enemy—each missing plane filled with names and faces of men he knew. My siblings and I returned home with these tales of Pappy during the war. Our dad would be incredulous because he had never heard them before. Indeed, it was a world Pappy had been reticent to speak of, but the stories started to flow with greater frequency in his final years. He could remember 1943 clearer than the previous day’s activities. As an adult, I exchanged emails with him. His messages to me were often written in all caps. A modern-day equivalent to shouting, but something I knew was a holdover from his war days. vii Only when I started covering the military as a newspaper reporter did I begin to fully appreciate the sacrifices of my grandfather and other family members over the centuries. The budding historian in me appreciated the roles, albeit small ones, that each family member had played on the larger world stage. The American Revolution. The Civil War. World War I. World War II. Vietnam Era. The First Gulf War. It remains hard not to have a strong sense of place, purpose, and pride in this knowledge that ties me to the larger historic narrative of this country. Each individual, regardless of how insignificant a role, represents a thread in a much larger American tapestry. But I also know there are many holes in our nation’s fabric. Narratives either forgotten or ignored because of gender or race. For these veterans, the battle was not limited to the enemy at the front lines. For too many Americans, the added adversaries of prejudice, indifference, and arrogance—often from their own countrymen—are also embedded in their wartime experiences.