What was the impact of WW2 on African - Americans?

What was the impact of WW2 on African - Americans?

1. Historians view

   • Robin D. G. Kelly
     • Working class African Amercans engaged in various forms of day-to-day oppression which he labels "infrapolitics".
       • Some young men wore zootsuits, illegal due to their generous use of rationed cloth, and adopted assertive and distinctive language in an open challenge to white authority.
   • Harvard Stinkoff
     • WW2 witnessed a new militancy in the African American community which led to the interracial violence of 1943.
     • Both the black press and the large majoirty of African Americans gave priority to winning the war.
   • Neil McMillen
     • African Americans did not return with an expectancy that discrimination would change, or with the intention of making such change happen.

2. Work

   • Rapid growth of of defence industries and military bases = many African Americans in the South migrated to higher-paid jobs in the urban South, North and West.
   • During the war, 1 million African Americans joined the workforce, including 600,000 women.
     • Initially they faced exclusion, or segregation and confinement to the most unattractive jobs.

3. War

   • Pre - Pearl Habour (1941) = the army beginning to train African American pilots and the navy and the marines accepted blacks for general services (although within segregated units) whilst the army increasingly accepting African American volunteers and draftees.
   • Wartime conditions of urban overcrowding and increased contact bewteen the races led to riots in every region of America
   • Polls conducted in mid-1943 found northern African Americans far more dissastisfied with conditions than southern blacks, which implies that the war did not mark a watershed for the civil rights movement in the South.

4. Culture

   • Spontaneous individual acts of African - American resistance to unfair treatment rose significantly, (e.g. bus issues) = particularly among women since they depended on buses more than men.
   • Arguably did not bring about a new direction in black aspirations, or a change in the means of attaining them (based on McMillen)