The War Within a War
The Black Struggle in Vietnam and at Home
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE • Award-winning author and journalist Wil Haygood explores how the Vietnam War became a mirror for the struggle of Black Americans—fighting for freedom abroad while demanding equality at home—and a powerful lens through which to understand the racial and political divides that continue to shape American life.
"With this book, Wil Haygood has become the preeminent chronicler of the Black experience in America.” —Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Laureate for The Making of the Atomic Bomb
"In these masterful pages, Haygood reframes both the Vietnam War and the United States’ unfinished struggle for equality."—Mitchell Zuckoff, New York Times bestselling author of 13 Hours and Lost in Shangri-La
Drawing on the lives of soldiers and officers, doctors and nurses, journalists and activists, artists and politicians, Haygood illuminates a generation caught between two battles: one on the front lines in Vietnam and another for justice and dignity in America.
Among those at the heart of the story are Air Force pilot Fred Cherry, the first Black officer captured by the North Vietnamese and a hero to millions back home; Dr. Elbert Nelson, a doctor who came to Vietnam after watching TV footage of the Watts riots in Los Angeles and soon found himself amid rising Black soldier protests overseas; Wallace Terry, a groundbreaking Black reporter determined to expose the dynamics of race and war to the American public and Philippa Schuyler, a biracial concert pianist who traveled to Vietnam to rescue mixed-race orphans, many fathered by Black soldiers, and died trying to bring them to safety.
Surrounding their experiences are the cultural and political forces of the era, including Martin Luther King Jr., Marvin Gaye, Berry Gordy, and Lyndon Johnson, whose voices and actions shaped a decade of turbulence and transformation.
The War Within a War is both sweeping history and intimate revelation, capturing the tragedies and triumphs, the honor and hypocrisies, the courage and cowardice that shaped an era and whose repercussions resonate today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This immersive history from bestselling biographer Haygood (The Butler) explores the unique experiences of African Americans drawn into the Vietnam War as the civil rights battle raged on the home front. Among those profiled are Capt. Leroy Pitts, the first Black officer awarded the Medal of Honor after he "heaved himself" onto a grenade to protect his men, and Air Force officer Fred Cherry, who endured seven harrowing years of torture as a POW, as well as civilians like Philippa Schuyler, a biracial piano prodigy who died while rescuing orphans fathered by American soldiers in Vietnam, Time journalist Wallace Terry, who doggedly reported on Black soldiers, and Maude DeVictor, a "government worker-bee" who investigated veterans' illnesses caused by Agent Orange. These disparate threads combine to produce a wide-ranging examination of the "many truths" of African American life during "America's first fully integrated war," from discrimination against Black officers and racist tension between Black and white troops to those tensions' dissipation under shared duress, as in the case of the moving friendship that developed between Cherry and fellow POW Porter Halyburton, a white Southerner. In particular, the book vividly portrays the growing anger among African American troops about fighting "a white man's war," culminating in a "racial riot" at the Long Binh Jail near Saigon in August 1968 following Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. The result is a highly original window into a turbulent historical moment.
