The Double V
How Wars, Protest, and Harry Truman Desegregated America's Military
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Executive Order 9981, issued by President Harry Truman on July 26, 1948, desegregated all branches of the United States military by decree. EO 9981 is often portrayed as a heroic and unexpected move by Truman. But in reality, Truman's history-making order was the culmination of more than 150 years of legal, political, and moral struggle.
?Beginning with the Revolutionary War, African Americans had used military service to do their patriotic duty and to advance the cause of civil rights. The fight for a desegregated military was truly a long war-decades of protest and labor highlighted by bravery on the fields of France, in the skies over Germany, and in the face of deep-seated racism on the military bases at home. Today, the military is one of the most truly diverse institutions in America.
?In The Double V, Rawn James, Jr.the son and grandson of African American veteransexpertly narrates the remarkable history of how the strugge for equality in the military helped give rise to their fight for equality in civilian society. Taking the reader from Crispus Attucks to President Barack Obama, The Double V illuminates the African American military tradition as a metaphor for their unique and dynamic role in American history.
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Long before the Little Rock Nine, the United States military established itself as an example of a functioning integrated society for the rest of the nation. James (Root and Branch), a Washington, D.C., lawyer, shows that the push to desegregate the military dates back to the Revolutionary War, but it wasn't until after WWI, during a victory celebration in Paris, that the struggle reached its most sobering nadir: "he United States was the only Allied nation to forbid its black soldiers from marching in the parade." That disappointing experience prompted African-American leaders in WWII to pursue the "double V": victory abroad against external enemies and victory at home against prejudice. The unlikely hero of the story is President Truman unlike FDR, he was willing to risk his political career to back the cause of African-American rights, eventually ordering the desegregation of the armed forces in 1948. Truman's decree set the precedent for the civil rights movement and remains a lynchpin event in the struggle for equal rights of all kinds; as long as inequality persists, this tale of persistence, sacrifice, and triumph will continue to inspire.
