In an original contribution to the extensive WW II literature,
Moore (Sociology/SUNY, Buffalo) has compiled oral histories of
African-American women who served in the Women's Army Corps (WAC)
6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. Although racism and
sexism were rampant in the military as in civilian life, powerful
allies like Mary McLeod Bethune, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the NAACP
helped to persuade President Roosevelt to remove one barrier after
another that prevented black women from participating in the war
effort. As a result, many African-American women volunteered,
bravely facing their lot as members of a segregated army because of
patriotism, activism, and the desire to better themselves. Moore
presents the stories of some of these women, members of the only
battalion to be stationed overseas during the war. Despite gripes
that all soldiers share, the accounts claim that morale was high.
Moore's subjects seemed to enjoy the humor of 850 women in a
barracks - especially when all of them needed to have their hair
done at the same time by the few beauticians in their ranks. They
also tell of the hospitality they found among the British and
French families they encountered - in sharp contrast to the racial
discrimination of Americans. Moore shows that these women faced sex
discrimination, as well, and repeated slanders against their
reputations as either "companions" to black soldiers or butch
lesbians. Still, the women's reports about the army are mainly
positive. For most of these WACs, military training gave them the
tools of upward mobility: discipline, education (through the GI
bill), maturity, a work ethic, job training, experience, pride, and
confidence. Although perhaps of more interest to students of
sociology than to the general reader, Moore's study warmly tells a
success story about a little-known aspect of WW II. (Kirkus
Reviews)
I would have climbed up a mountain to get on the list to serve
overseas]. We were going to do our duty. Despite all the bad things
that happened, America was our home. This is where I was born. It
was where my mother and father were. There was a feeling of wanting
to do your part.
--Gladys Carter, member of the 6888th
To Serve My Country, to Serve my Race is the story of the
historic 6888th, the first United States Women's Army Corps unit
composed of African-American women to serve overseas.
While African-American men and white women were invited, if
belatedly, to serve their country abroad, African-American women
were excluded for overseas duty throughout most of WWII. Under
political pressure from legislators like Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.,
the NAACP, the black press, and even President Roosevelt, the U.S.
War Department was forced to deploy African-American women to the
European theater in 1945.
African-American women, having succeeded, through their own
activism and political ties, in their quest to shape their own
lives, answered the call from all over the country, from every
socioeconomic stratum. Stationed in France and England at the end
of World War II, the 6888th brought together women like Mary Daniel
Williams, a cook in the 6888th who signed up for the Army to escape
the slums of Cleveland and to improve her ninth-grade education,
and Margaret Barnes Jones, a public relations officer of the
6888th, who grew up in a comfortable household with a politically
active mother who encouraged her to challenge the system.
Despite the social, political, and economic restrictions imposed
upon these African-American women in their own country, they were
eager to serve, not only out of patriotism but out of a desire to
uplift their race and dispell bigoted preconceptions about their
abilities. Elaine Bennett, a First Sergeant in the 6888th, joined
because "I wanted to prove to myself and maybe to the world that we
would give what we had back to the United States as a confirmation
that we were full- fledged citizens."
Filled with compelling personal testimony based on extensive
interviews, To Serve My Country is the first book to document the
lives of these courageous pioneers. It reveals how their Army
experience affected them for the rest of their lives and how they,
in turn, transformed the U.S. military forever.
General
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