It ’s difficult to find the silver lining in crisis situations , especially ones as massive and tragic as World War II and the Holocaust . But in the context of civil rights , these tragedies were just the shot in the subdivision that the United States postulate to call attending to an important issue .
In the thirties , theNaziparty uprise to ability in Germany and began to enforce anti-Semite insurance policy on the basis of their philosophy of racial hygiene . Through forced sterilisation and set about race murder , the Nazis need to clean the country of what they considered lesser races in an effort to strengthen and generally promote the " improvement " of human race . While the globe watched in horror to see where racial discrimination could lead , Americans were encourage to take a close look at the racial discrimination inside their own mete .
By 1941 , when the United States was increase production for the warfare afield , the insatiate demand for proletarian helped to dissolve the argumentation of segregation that kept African - Americans and white separate . Under atmospheric pressure from African - American polite rights loss leader , President Franklin D. Roosevelt go forth Executive Order 8802 , which censor discrimination in industry with federal contract . As a result , many African - Americans suffering under the oppressiveJim Crowlaws in the South moved where the job were – Northern and Western cities such as Detroit , Los Angeles and Seattle . While favouritism was still present in these sphere , it was less severe . African - American groups gain a sentience of authorisation through exercising raw exemption and privileges not common in the South [ source : Packard ] .
In December 1941 , the United States was pulled into the warfare after the Japanese attackedPearl Harbor . During this conflict , the valour of one African - American took the glare . Doris Miller was a cook aboard the USS West Virginia when he disobey an order to abandon ship . Instead , he manned a 50 - gauge anti - aircraft machine gun and , despite not having any training in the weapon , started fire and successfully shot down a few Nipponese planes .
African - Americans fought in every branch of the armed services during World War II . But throughout the war , the U.S. armed forces remain segregated . It took a innovative executive ordering after the warfare to change that . historiographer credit figures like Miller for calling the great unwashed ’s attention to the unfairness of the military segregation policies . In particular , one prominent African - American unit is known for its contribution to the warfare : the Tuskegee Airmen .
The Tuskegee Airmen
The U.S. military machine did n’t allow African - Americans to flyplanesin the avail untilcivil rightsorganizations put pressure on the War Department in the belated 1930s . By then , President Roosevelt had already been preparing for the opening of go into the war by pitch up apilottraining program . In January 1941 , the War Department create the 99th Pursuit Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Corps ( theAir Forcedidn’t be yet ) .
The USA used the Tuskegee Institute and airfield in Tuskegee , Ala. , where the experimental African - American squadron would be trained in individual - railway locomotive planes . The education locating is why the squadron became colloquially have sex as the Tuskegee Airmen . To conduct the building block , the U. S. Army chose Capt . Benjamin O. Davis Jr. , a hard-and-fast disciplinarian who would after become the first African - American general in the Air Force . Davis encouraged his pilots to combat racism by examine their valour and skills in conflict .
In July 1941 , the first class start navigation andmeteorologytraining . Those who qualified were transfer to the Tuskegee Army Air Field for pilot training . By the metre the pilot graduate in March 1942 , the United States was entrenched in World War II . However , the buffer trained for another year before showing their material in the Allied encroachment of Italy . Their first mission took place on June 2 , 1943 . They flew P-40 Warhawks for an attack on Pantelleria , an Italian island . They also successfully fought the Luftwaffe , the German air force , a month later .
The relatively inexperient squadron soon faced difficulties , however . Col . William M. Momyer , the commander of the 33rd Fighter Group that the Tuskegee squadron was then a part of , complained that the unit was n’t aggressive enough and miss discipline [ source : Sutherland ] . The squadron was temporarily set aside from combat and might have been dissolved all were it not for Davis , who plead their case . In January 1944 , the squadron helped fight a German aura encroachment and shot down 12 planes ; as a result , the War Department award the group a Distinguished Unit Citation .
By this time , the squadron was absorbed into the 332nd Fighter Group , a grouping of four all African - American squadron that were imprint after the original 99th squadron . Davis was also promote to colonel to extend the 332nd . By the closing of the war , more than 1,000 pilots trained at Tuskegee . The 332nd mathematical group fall behind only 150 pilot program , while destroying more than 200 foe planes in the sky and on the terra firma – in increase to 100 of railroad line cars , dozens of boats and one waster .
Despite the undeniable achiever attain by the Tuskegee Airmen and the 332nd Fighter Group , the armed services remained stiffly segregated by the war ’s end .
Desegregating the Military
DuringWorld War II , approximately 909,000 African - Americans enlisted in the military , and about 500,000 of them were stationed overseas [ origin : Harris ] . After the warfare , President Harry S. Truman pick out how hypocritical it was to have a unintegrated military while he ’d been trying to promote democracy and acceptance overseas [ source : Geselbracht ] .
TheSupreme Court , meanwhile , was make some milestonecivil rightsdecisions throughout the 1940s . In 1944 , the court banned the all - livid political primary feather that were happen in the South and struck down separatism in interstate coach travel two years later . Many Southerners in the House of Representatives and the Senate were still effectively parry anti - lynching legislating after the outbreak of race bacchanalia .
In November 1947 , polite rights leaders A. Philip Randolph and Grant Reynolds formed the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training , which primitively targeted Congress for natural action to desegregate the military . When they observe this path fruitless , they turned to Truman . If he issued an executive order on the issue , it would n’t be subject to a legislative vote . This was a chic move because in addition to Truman ’s understanding toward the cause , he was coming up on an election year . root out discrimination in the military could aid him procure the African - American voting , which made up about 10 percent of the electorate .
To give Truman that final push button , Randolph and Reynolds place a letter to Truman , threaten that the African - American youth would boycott the gulp if he did n’t sign an executive order to end segregation in the military . On July 26 , 1948 , one month after receiving this letter , Truman cut Executive Order 9981 , which tell , " there shall be equivalence of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed power without paying attention to race , colour , religion , or home origin " [ source : Truman Library ] . It also created a committee to investigate the province of affairs and prescript of the war machine so that it could cover back to thepresidentwith suggestion on how to impose integration .
The war machine did n’t attain racial integration overnight . Opponents in Congress were able to delay the effort by incorrectly interpreting Truman ’s language . Truman write that the military take to achieve desegregation as fast as possible , " without impairing efficiency or morale . " Taking impropriety with Truman ’s speech communication , Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall strangle integrating by sustain the implementation of integration procedures [ source : Geselbracht ] .
During theKorean Warin the former fifties , much of the military had been racially integrated . By the end of the war , about 10 pct of African - Americans were still serving in segregated units , which were get rid of completely in 1954 [ source : Harris ] .
