Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad

Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad by Matthew F. Delmont

More than one million black soldiers served in World War II. Black troops were at Normandy, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge, serving in segregated units and performing unheralded but vital support jobs, only to be denied housing and educational opportunities on their return home. Without their crusial contributions to the war effort, the United States could not have won the war. And yet the stories of these Black veterans have long been ignored, cast aside in favor of the myth of the "Good War" fought by the "Greatest Generation."

Half American is American history as you've likely never read it before. In these pages are stories of Black heroes such as Thurgood Marshall, the chief lawyer for the NAACP, who investigated and publicized violence against Black troops and veterans; Benjamin O. Davis Jr., leader of the Tuskegge Airmen, who was at the forefront of the years-long fight to open the Army Air Forces to Black pilots; Ella Baker, the civil rights leader who advocated on the home front for Black soldiers, veterans, and their families; James G. Thompason, the twenty-six-year-old whose letter to a newspaper laying bare the hypocrsy of fighting against fascism abroad when racism still reigned at hom set in motion the Double Victory campaign; and poet Langston Hughes, who worked as a war correspondent for the Black press. Their brvery and patriotism in the face of unfathomable racism is both inspiring and galvanizing. In a time when questions regarding race and democracy in America remain troublingly relevant, this meticulously researched account makes for urgent and necessary reading.

Viking Press, Hardcover, 1st Edition, 1st Printing, 2022