African Americans in WWI
1 2018-04-12T03:37:09-07:00 Maureen Gray ab288c53aefb942d3e6102c32f4d6e3a10268d3b 19701 1 plain 2018-04-12T03:37:09-07:00 YouTube 2014-02-14T16:26:33.000Z CxNyssePBaU Brian Ham Maureen Gray ab288c53aefb942d3e6102c32f4d6e3a10268d3bThis page is referenced by:
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World War I
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Hope for democracy at home
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When WWI erupted in1914, most Americans saw no need become involved in a European family squabble. As greater demand for American made products increased, African Americans were lured north to work in factories. Opportunities abounded because in addition to manufacturing war products, immigration from southern and eastern Europe halted the influx of fresh workers that had fueled the Gilded Age. Though wages and living conditions were scarcely better for African Americans in the North, the opportunity to escape the vile discrimination of the South weighed in the North’s favor. In northern urban areas, African Americans lived in close-knit units whereas sharecropping kept them separate. As one migrant from Alabama wrote in the Chicago Defender, “(I) am in the darkness of the south and (I) am trying my best to get out.”
President Wilson promoted the war to Americans because we were making the "world safe for democracy.” African Americans hoped it would bring democracy to them also. Though some outspoken African Americans like A. Philip Randolph opposed black participation in the war, many black newspapers supported it. “Colored folks should be patriotic,” the Richmond Planet insisted. “Do not let us be chargeable with being disloyal to the flag.” Over one million African Americans responded to their draft calls, and 370,000 were inducted into the army. During training in the South, colored troops were treated horribly, many northern recruits could not bear the oppression resulting in riots in both East St. Louis and Houston in 1917, leaving tensions high and 129 Negroes dead.
In Europe, segregated African American units were denied combat assignments, relegated to mop and bucket jobs.Europeans welcomed the colored soldiers into their pubs, restaurants, and nightclubs giving them a taste of equality. When they returned to America after the war, discrimination was doubly difficult to accept.
