M20_HINE8817_05_SE_CH20.QXD 9/25/10 6:49 AM Page 538 CHAPTER 20 The World War II Era and the Seeds of a Revolution How did African Americans use the World War II crisis to protest racial discrimination? What role did African-American physicians and nurses play in the struggle to desegregate the military during World War II? How did the Tuskegee Airmen contribute to victory in World War II? How did the war exacerbate tensions and competition over housing and jobs between black and white Americans? How did the Italian invasion of Ethiopia help to shape black internationalism? Why did Ralph Bunche receive a Nobel Peace Prize? Racial segregation as practiced by the U.S. military reminded African Americans of their second-class status in America. The World War II crisis made impossible continued acquiescence to blatant inequalities. The black “Double V” campaign sought victory against racism on the home and foreign fronts. 538 M20_HINE8817_05_SE_CH20.QXD 9/25/10 6:49 AM Page 539 M20_HINE8817_05_SE_CH20.QXD 9/25/10 6:50 AM Page 540 “The treatment that the Negro soldier has received has been resented not only by the Negro into the Cold War. This long conflict, which lasted soldier but by the Negro civilian population as well. until 1989, led to a vast expansion in the size and power In fact, any straight-thinking person with a sense of of the federal government, particularly its military, and greatly influenced domestic politics. justice and right, without any respect to color or International events replaced the Great Depres- race, must realize the dangers inherent in the evil sion as the defining force in the lives of African practices that have been permitted to exist in the Americans. In preparing for and fighting World War Army. It is not a pleasant thought for Negroes to II, America finally emerged from the Depression and ponder that their tax laid the basis for an era of unprecedented prosperity. Industrial and military mobilization resulted in the money is being spent to movement of millions of people, many of them African help maintain an army Americans, from agricultural areas into the cities. This that has little regard for population shift substantially increased black voting the real principles of strength in the North and West, which—combined democracy.” with a moral recoil from the savage racial policies of the Nazis—drove the issue of black equality to the fore- David H. Bradford, the Louisville front of national politics. Moreover, hundreds of Courier Journal, September 2, 1941 thousands of black men and women learned new skills and ideas while serving in the armed forces, and many resolved to claim their rights. Events abroad and in the ǡ Truman’s order to desegregate United States during the 1940s heightened black the armed forces in 1948 marked the victory of a long struggle by consciousness and led to a more aggressive militancy black civilians and soldiers to win among local leaders and black citizens in southern full integration into the nation’s states. military. The Cold War also had a tremendous impact on African Americans and their struggle for freedom. The two sides of this global conflict avoided direct con- frontation with each other. Instead, they sought to enlist Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans as proxies. American leaders, trying to convince these peoples of America’s virtues as a democracy, were pressed to ad- dress the segregation and racial discrimination that Between 1939 and 1954, the U.S. role in the world remained firmly imbedded in American life. The was transformed. The victory in World War II U.S. Department of State sponsored worldwide tours of the Allies—the Soviet Union, Great Britain, of outstanding black jazz musicians to represent the the United States, and dozens of other countries—over positive dimensions of American culture. Still, the ad- the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan marked vocacy groups and black press that had come of age America’s emergence as the dominant global power. during the 1930s and 1940s focused attention on fight- This international role placed new constraints on the ing racism and demanded the full rights and nation’s domestic policies, particularly when, after the responsibilities of citizenship for all people. The result Axis surrender in 1945, suspi- was a powerful movement for civil rights that many Hear the Audio cions between the United States liberal white Americans and, increasingly, key institu- Hear the audio files for Chapter 20 at www.myhistorylab.com and the Soviet Union developed tions in the national government supported. M20_HINE8817_05_SE_CH20.QXD 9/25/10 6:50 AM Page 541 THE WORLD WAR II ERA AND THE SEEDS OF A REVOLUTION 541 These favorable developments, however, provoked extensive economic interests and colonial possessions strong resistance. Egged on by their politicians, white there. (The United States controlled the Philippines, Hawaii, Guam, and other Pacific islands.) Japan’s aggres- southerners defended segregation with all the power at sive expansionist policies also led to conflict in the 1930s their command. The emerging conflict with the Soviet with the Soviet Union in Manchuria and to a long and Union prompted many white conservatives to charge bloody war with the Nationalist regime in China. The that all those seeking to fight racial injustice were agents United States supported China and encouraged the Europeans to resist Japanese demands for economic and of the communist enemy. These contrary currents—on territorial concessions in their Asian colonies. Japan’s al- one hand, the push for a new democracy, and, on the liance with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy further aggra- other, the Cold War mentality—would indelibly stamp vated United States–Japanese relations, which the emerging civil rights movement. deteriorated rapidly after the outbreak of World War II in Europe. These tensions led to war on December 7, 1941, when Hear the Audio Pearl Harbor On the Eve of War, 1936–1941 the Japanese bombed American warships at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and launched a mas- As the world economy wallowed in the Great Depres- sive offensive against British, Dutch, and American terri- sion, the international order collapsed in Europe and tory throughout the Pacific. Asia. Germany under Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) and President Franklin D. Roosevelt watched the Italy under Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) created an events in Europe and Asia during the 1930s with grow- alliance, known as the Axis, to control Europe. These ing concern, but his ability to react was limited. Despite fascist dictators advocated a political program based its large economy and large navy, America was not a on extreme nationalism that suppressed internal preeminent military power at the time. Roosevelt had opposition and used violence to gain their will abroad. trouble convincing Congress to enlarge the army be- Germany was the dominant partner in the Axis. Its cause a significant segment of the American population, National Socialist, or Nazi, Party in part blamed com- the isolationists, believed the United States had been munists and foreign powers for the nation’s economic hoodwinked into fighting World War I and should avoid depression and loss of power. But even more than by becoming entangled in another foreign war. During the anticommunism, however, Hitler was driven by late 1930s, the president had managed to overcome virulent racism and his belief in Anglo-Saxon, or white some of this opposition and had won the authority to in- Aryan, supremacy. Unlike racists in the United States, crease the size of the nation’s armed forces. By early he blamed Jews for Germany’s social and economic 1940 the United States had instituted its first peacetime problems. But the Nazis also despised black people draft to provide men for the army and navy. and considered them inferior or subhuman beings. They discriminated against Germans with African ancestors and banned jazz as “nigger” music. Begin- AFRICAN AMERICANS ning in the mid-1930s, the Germans and Italians embarked on a series of aggressive confrontations and AND THE EMERGING WORLD CRISIS military campaigns that placed much of Central Many African Americans responded to the emerging Europe under their power. In August 1939 Germany world crisis with growing activism. When Italy in- signed a nonaggression pact with vaded Ethiopia in 1935, it was, along with Liberia and Hear the Audio the Soviet Union, a prelude to its Haiti, one of the world’s three black-ruled nations, “Roosevelt and Hitler”: September 1 attack on Poland, and black communities throughout the United States Buster Ezell’s Wartime Song which the Soviets joined a few organized to send it aid. In New York, black nurses weeks later. Poland’s allies, Britain and France, reacted under the leadership of Salaria Kee raised money to by declaring war on Germany, thus beginning World purchase medical supplies, and black physician John War II. West volunteered to treat wounded Ethiopians at As Germany and Italy pursued their aggression in a hospital supported by black American donations. Europe, the empire of Japan sought to dominate East Mass meetings to support the Ethiopians were held Asia. The Japanese considered themselves the foremost in New York City under the auspices of the Provi- power in the Far East and wanted to drive out or sup- sional Committee for the Defense of Ethiopia and plant both the European states—mainly Britain, France, the Ethiopian World Federation. Similar rallies oc- and the Netherlands—and the United States, which had curred in other large cities while reporters from black M20_HINE8817_05_SE_CH20.QXD 9/25/10 6:50 AM Page 542 542 CHAPTER 20 newspapers, such as J. A. Rogers of the Pittsburgh of closed-shop agreements. Government-funded Courier, brought the horror of this war home to their training programs regularly rejected black appli- readers.