Negro Soldier (1943) notes

THE NEGRO SOLDIER GEN MARSHALL AND THE AMERICAN WAR EFFORT

War ends the Great Depression; Fed budget goes from $9 billion in 39 to $100 billion; GNP from 91 billion to $166 billion in 45. 17,000,000 new jobs; average family income rises in NYC by about 48%... Work week lengthened from 40.6 hrs in 41 to 45.2 in 44; cost of living went up 28% from 40 to 45, but weekly wages went up about 70%.

People had incomes 65% above Depression by 43, looking to buy things; fear of inflation. Many items scarce, though meat prod up 50% over Depression .

Blacks mostly living in the South, despite emigration northward during WWI. The migration picks up steadily from 1940 with important social and political consequences.

Segregation in place since the 1890s. No civil rights laws between 1870s and long after WWII.

Blacks had often benefitted from New Deal measures, but FDR refused to endorse federal anti-lynching legislation or any other targeted civil rights bills. FDR depended on southern Senators, and couldn’t afford to upset them with backing bills supporting blacks.

Eleanor Roosevelt was more sympathetic to blacks. She posed with black ROTC cadets at Howard University. A photo that scandalized many whites in the South.

Blacks had traditionally voted Republican (the party of Lincoln), but that changes sharply in 1936, despite segregationist control of the US Senate by Democrats. Became an important voting black in the North for the New Deal by 1938

Black leaders determined that WWII would not turn out like WWI.

After that war, black soldiers returned home to lynchings and riots in 1919-1921; the new Klan very strong in the Midwest.

After 1939 defense industries revved up and offered good paying jobs, especially in the North around Detroit, Chicago, Gary and Pittsburgh. Blacks wanted some of these jobs. Move northward. Then came the peacetime draft in 1940 and war mobilization in 1941, which changed a lot of things. FDR vague on whether federal government would insist upon fair employment by defense contractors

A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (black union), insisted that defense contractors integrate their work forces. Told FDR that if government didn’t take action to prevent discrimination in wartime industry, there would be a massive 100,000-man march on Washington in 1941. FDR doesn’t want the march (would make govt look REALLY bad), and conceded, passing the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) to investigate discrimination in war industries.

Randolph organized the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) in 1942, forced DC restaurants to serve blacks in 1944, staged sit-ins and demonstrations in movie theatres, recruited James Farmer and Bayard Rustin (will be important for civil rights in 1950s and 60s).

Migration from rural south to industrial cities and plants, 1.6 million move out of south, 5 million relocate within South. Fears by whites of Eleanor Clubs, that black domestic help will go on strike in the South; race riots near Polish neighborhood in Detroit in 43, 34 dead. Battles over housing.

Henry Luce’s Time and Life magazine fight for racial equality. Time kept track of lynchings and Life promotes stories about black soldiers and civilians in a favorable light…but stereotypes still appear however.

Life was honest in portraying the racial troubles in the Detroit area, aggravating the govt.

African Americans were barred from the Marine Corps and Army Air Forces. When they could serve in the Navy and Army, they were always segregated, and generally given menial jobs (in Navy, could be cooks and work in the laundry). By the end of WWII, 700,000 served, and war training camps were integrated, more black units sent to combat; some riots and tensions...

Back in the US, the entire South was legally segregated, and so were many border states and even beyond (such as Kansas)

In WWI, blacks drafted in to segregated units commanded by whites

The US Officer Corps before 1940 was largely southern (so white southern officers training/commanding black units)

No blacks in Congress until WWII

The problem was clear: in WWI, Wilson had talked about democracy and self-determination, but was at heart, a southern segregationist. Democrats relied upon the solid south eleven states' electoral votes..

FDR was more circumspect, but still had to rely on the solid South for support.

But this World War was a war, at least in part, against racism in Germany and Japan. How could we fight against imperialism and racism abroad and not at home? Some framed the issue that way, but FDR was more cautious. His Four Freedoms speech in 1941 did not mention race (freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom from want, freedom from fear)

Walter White (head of the NAACP) saw

Walter White head of the NAACP founded before WWI saw black advance in context of worldwide majority of colored peoples...

Supreme Court rules against all-white primaries in the South 1944.

Wartime racial turbulence not restricted to issues of housing and black soldiers in southern towns:

Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall much concerned with black issues…a Virginian, he favored the recruitment of black officers though not necessarily commensurate with the number of black troops.

Marshall insisted black officers be qualified…had helped to train Illinois National Guard years earliers…

Marshall thought leadership by officers was vital. Felt vindicated by heroic black performance under Ike in Battle of the Bulge in late 1944

Marshall supported Tuskegee Institute ROTC plan. Later added pre-flight training, which would result in the famous squadron.

Marshall was a gradualist. Admired Booker T. Washington

Favored southern training bases like Fort Jackson (in South Carolina). Cost less and had more outdoor training. He admitted later that he had not figured in how this environment would affect northern blacks

Performance of segregated units was mixed in the Pacific. Later Marshall as Sec. of Defense presided over the final integration of the armed forces in 1950-51, which left very few segregated behind.

By 1943, Marshall wanted a high level information campaign favorable to Negro troops, because hundreds of thousands of blacks drafted by 1943, and the Army was concerned about racial incidents in the South and North; he wanted to combat ugly stereotypes, that Negro troops had not fought bravely, etc.

For this Marshall turned to Frank Capra, an unlikely but necessary choice

Making a film was imposed upon Capra.

He was an immigrant with few black friends or contacts.

His imagined world of America was a white world with a few black stereotypes as in “Prelude to War”

His heroes were white individualists who fought against big business or big government. Jimmy Stewart or Gary Cooper type roles…He admitted he knew little about black America.

In fact, Capra was not alone in his puzzlement about a changing society.

Both black leaders and entertainers and the media giants were uncertain about this new era.

Black stereotypes persisted: cooks, maids, chauffeurs, piano players…but these were lucrative roles for the performers who were loath to surrender them, and how far should white producers go in introducing more nuanced black characters to Hollywood audiences?

Hollywood not making many movies showing blacks as individuals equal to whites…Casablanca is a partial exception: Sam speaks his mind to Ilsa and Rick, but is there to serve and ultimately a “yes man”…half out of the stereotype

Hollywood could stall and look away, but the War Department had a more pressing problem: educating soldiers about race, unity, and (perhaps) equality

Marshall was a southerner educated at VMI, but he agreed on the need for a major film

Capra did NOT want to make The Negro Soldier

Army wanted blacks to see this kind of film, then wanted all GIs to see it, paving the way for later integration. Black writer Carlton Moss played a key role in the script and narrative. The War Dept wanted to write the film, but some feared it would be a kind of bland superficial film

Showed black becoming an officer and gave a short history lesson on the contributions of blacks to the building of America and the winning of America’s wars, but leaves out a considerable amount (no mention of slavery for example)

No reference to segregation in the armed forces. Praise lavished upon the film by the War Dept and Army…Moss later exposed as a communist and Capra alleged he had to tone down the radicalism of the original script (Moss denied)

Film screened late in 1943 for Stimson and Marshall. Capra present. Black journalists impressed, hoped that whites would see it too.

Black recruits like it and 67% of white soldiers did too. Modest success commercially in shortened form.

Blacks shown as “integrated” in some sense into the wider society military or civilian. Implication…why not integrate the armed forces?

Aspects of The Negro Soldier (1944)

Setting was a black church with a middle class aura. Religiosity and patriotism combine in this stirring film.

The tenor is a sergeant in the Army. A mother is proud her son is in Officer Candidate School (OCS) and will graduate an officer.

Symbols: blacks die in American battles since 1770

NO USE OF THE WORDS SEGREGATION, LYNCHING, RACISM, OR SLAVERY—Why not??

Joe Louis knocking out German Max Schmeling. Metaphor for global struggle

Typical Capra formula of slavery vs. freedom, us vs. them, good vs. evil

Fear that blacks might be seduced by line that this was a war between whites, or the Japanese favored the colored peoples: anti-black quotes from Mein Kampf

“half ape” “criminal madness”

only one mention of Jews in the film: a dead soldier named Levine.

Never mentions that blacks fought in segregated units in WWI

Arlington Cemetary…blacks in battle in WWI decorated by French…no mention of race riots after 1918

celebration of black achievements: Carver, Washington, Marian Anderson…no mention of struggle for equal rights (no NAACP, WEB DuBois, Marcus Garvey, etc)…unity is the theme,

Great clips of blacks beating Germans in front of Hitler at 1936 Olympics. White Americans cheering madly.

Many blacks from outside South sent to segregated southern training camps. Several incidents, but not mentioned in the film

Welcome center for GIs integrated, but then a subtle unmentioned change takes place…suddenly black recruits appear in all-black units…shows harsh training made milder by dances, church, and cultural events

Does not name number of black offices, but says three times as many as WWI. Thanks to ROTC and West Point

Tuskegee pilots mentioned

Men of all races fighting together: cooperation not integration implied…nothing about the Navy because it was the most segregated and least black.

Possible conclusions from film:

§ Marshall: wanted to commission more black officers, but never seemed to assault the segregationist system

§ The Nazis and Japanese were bad news for all Americans (white and black)

§ The black stake in American victory

§ Cooperation is possible within a segregated system

§ Christian themes as a uniting factor in the war effort

Sense of black progress, but very vague. What is the goal? Defeating Hitler and Japan and saving American freedom…and then?

Is this as extreme as a film that shows black America only in terms of lynchings, slavery, and segregation?

Couldn’t offend the South and segregationists

No mention of threatened March on Washington in 1941 by A. Philip Randolph

In the movie, blacks singled out for prominent roles often middle class and light-skinned. Why?

Blacks lauded by the film are Washington, Carver, etc, not rebels and not even the NAACP

Instead of lauding black progress despite slavery and oppression, the film selected black fighters in American battles, and praised them. (Crispus Attucks). Almost as if blacks were a parallel minority solidly lodged in the American society of 1770 or 1944...

A slice of history carefully prepared…why the caution? Race riots had occurred in Harlem and Detroit in 1943…so the film wanted to be upbeat, optimistic, down the middle: progress, victory, unity

Remember the film was to be shown to black and white recruits and possibly to general audiences…a cynic might argue that blacks were shown happily helping a white cause triumph. On the other hand, one might conclude that blacks and whites both had a stake in destroying Hitlerism and Japanese militarism so that future generations might be spared…and more progress can occur on the racial front.