By Hasan Kwame Jeffries, The Ohio State University
President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802 in 1941, affirming “that there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin”. However, because the military remained rigidly segregated, their experience was remarkably similar to that of African American soldiers during World War I.
African Americans in Noncombat Units
1.2 million African Americans served in the American military during World War II. However, most were assigned to noncombat units and made to do support work—building roads and landing strips, constructing barracks, and preparing meals. They also had to load and unload supplies, including munitions, which was especially dangerous.
On July 17, 1944, in Port Chicago, California, two ships being loaded with live munitions exploded, killing more than 200 Black sailors. When some of the survivors refused to resume work under the same hazardous conditions at a nearby munitions depot, 50 were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Civil rights organizations tried to end this kind of mistreatment by pushing for as much ‘equal’ as ‘separate’ would allow. This included commissioning Black officers for Black units. These efforts led to the creation of the 332nd Fighter Group of the Army Air Corps—the famed Tuskegee Airmen.
This article comes directly from content in the video series African American History: From Emancipation through Jim Crow. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
The Tuskegee Airmen
Nearly 1,000 Black pilots graduated from the segregated flight training school at Tuskegee Army Airfield in Tuskegee, Alabama. Between 1942 and 1945, they flew over 1,500 missions and participated in more than 15,000 combat sorties.
Known as the Red Tails because of the distinctive red color they painted on the tails of their planes, Tuskegee Airmen notched 112 aerial kills. They also performed bomber escort duty with such proficiency that all-white bomber crews frequently requested that they fly cover for them.
But Black valor in the air, on land, and at sea wasn’t enough to change Jim Crow policies and practices during the war, either within the military or civilian life. In fact, it unnerved arch segregationists because it undermined white supremacy. Their core belief shaken, racists acted out. In June 1943, Detroit police went on a two-day rampage, killing 17 African Americans.
Double V Campaign
The stubborn persistence of racial discrimination led the Pittsburgh Courier, Black America’s most widely read newspaper, to launch the Double V campaign, calling for victory overseas against fascism and victory at home against racism.
Black labor activist Asa Philip Randolph did his part for double victory by establishing the March on Washington Movement, an umbrella organization for March on Washington chapters that monitored the work of the Fair Employment Practices Committee. Randolph wanted to make sure the FEPC actually investigated discrimination complaints and penalized offenders.
The March on Washington Movement organized massive rallies. They also applied pressure to Northern state legislatures to establish state-level Fair Employment Practices Committees; New York was the first to do so.
Federal FEPC
But the federal FEPC was a tremendous disappointment. It was underfunded and understaffed. Its committee members also tended to be uninterested in investigating complaints. And worst of all, it lacked enforcement power. It couldn’t do much to violators, even if it wanted to.
Segregationists monitored the work of the FEPC as well, and they didn’t like what they saw. Any effort to promote racial equality was a threat to white supremacy. So Southern Democrats blocked attempts to convert Executive Order 8802 into a federal law, effectively killing the FEPC in 1946.
When the FEPC disappeared, so too did the March on Washington Movement. But the energy that motivated Randolph and the tens of thousands of working-class African Americans who rallied to his call remained. In the years ahead, they would summon this energy for new protests. The mere threat of civil disobedience had opened millions of defense industry jobs on a nondiscriminatory basis, so much could happen if Black people actually took to the streets in nonviolent direct-action campaigns.
African Americans in Sports
In the meantime, African Americans found much-needed escape from the hardships of Jim Crow in amateur and professional sports. They reveled in the success of Black athletes, especially in baseball, boxing, and track and field. Every home run, knockout, and gold medal, especially against white competition, was evidence of Black equality.
In the late Jim Crow era, sport became a proxy for the Black freedom struggle. If African Americans could triumph against white supremacy on the diamond, in the ring, and on the track, then they could triumph against white supremacy in the classroom, in the courtroom, and everywhere else.
Common Questions about African Americans in the American Military
Nearly 1,000 Black pilots graduated from the segregated flight training school at Tuskegee Army Airfield in Tuskegee, Alabama. Between 1942 and 1945, they flew over 1,500 missions and participated in more than 15,000 combat sorties.
The stubborn persistence of racial discrimination led the Pittsburgh Courier, Black America’s most widely read newspaper, to launch the Double V campaign, calling for victory overseas against fascism and victory at home against racism. Black labor activist Asa Philip Randolph did his part for double victory by establishing the March on Washington Movement.
The federal Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) was a tremendous disappointment because it was underfunded and understaffed. Its committee members also tended to be uninterested in investigating complaints. And worst of all, it lacked enforcement power. It couldn’t do much to violators, even if it wanted to.
