When Grant Reynolds volunteered for the army at the beginning of the Second World War, he did so with much patriotism and high hopes. He wanted to support the nation’s cause and believed in the necessity of the mission to halt fascism across the globe. But he was also convinced that he could make a difference for his African American comrades and improve their position in and outside the military. Born in 1908, Reynolds had already made a name for himself as a civil rights activist in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was a reverend in the Mount Zion Congregational Temple...

For A. Philip Randolph, it was a fight with “gloves off.”¹ The black labor leader was no longer willing to accept the mistreatment African Americans experienced on a daily basis. Long before America’s direct involvement in the Second World War, Randolph was among the many African Americans who vehemently articulated their growing impatience and dissatisfaction with their social and political status in the United States. The war created millions of new jobs, especially in war industries. But despite the need for workers in all lines of work, discrimination and segregation continued. Moreover, the military intended to uphold segregation continued. Moreover,...

For African American soldiers, the return home came with the harsh realization that not much had changed in the United States. Well aware of their special position in the African American community, white supremacists used the defamation of black soldiers as a powerful strategy to disfranchise and degrade the black community. By May 1945, with the war in Europe over, many white Southerners felt more than ever that a “second Reconstruction” was taking place that had to be stalled. Regardless of a certain amount of social and economic progress for blacks and growing support among some white Americans for their...

Grant Reynolds returned to his civilian life earlier than he had expected. During his nearly three years of service as a black chaplain in the army, Reynolds not only gave spiritual guidance to African American soldiers, but also fought against segregation and discrimination in various stateside military bases. Known as a “troublemaker,” he was forced to leave the army and voluntarily left the NAACP. Nevertheless, his fight for civil rights hardly ended with his service, as his experiences in the military had made him more frustrated and militant. Like the soldiers he advised during his time as a chaplain in...

People all across the nation tried to make sense of the new and radical approach to integration. The call for disobedience made it into the pages of major national newspapers, when news on black issues rarely appeared in white publications.¹ The civil disobedience campaign was a serious enough issue that reflections on its implication for the country and national security were considered necessary. Even Southern papers reported on Randolph’s radical step in the quest for full civil rights.²Newsweekpublished a three-page article on the issue, expressing understanding for the impatience and frustration Randolph and Reynolds experienced. It reasoned that...

The pressure on the president to make decisive changes mounted, as the chances of winning over the increasingly important black vote in the upcoming presidential election became more difficult. At the end of June 1948, an anonymous White House memorandum recommended that Truman “support the introduction of moderate [civil rights] legislation beating the Republicans to the punch” and garner “credit.”¹ The president felt it necessary to act, but followed a slightly different route. On July 26, he issued Executive Order 9981, which called for the “equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the Armed services without regard to...

Korea was at “its modern nadir”¹ when a new war began in the Far East country at the end of June 1950. Rural and scarred by an economic depression, war, and Japanese repression, Korea remained poverty-ridden and its people mostly illiterate. Its economy was deeply grounded in labor-intensive rice agriculture and technological advances remained scarce. In Korea, American soldiers faced an uninviting topography and climate. Often scorching hot and humid in the summer and freezing cold in winter, the rugged mountains and valleys drained soldiers and civilians alike. The dirt roads made advances difficult and slow. Against this background, feelings...

Right from the start of the Korean War, African American newspapers and their war correspondents attempted to emphasize the necessity and advantages of integration. Black soldiers sent to war in integrated outfits would be the ultimate validation of their previous efforts in all wars. In theCourier, columnist Marjorie McKenzie wrote: “They [the headlines in black newspapers] were a proud boast of the non-segregated participation of Negro airmen and naval personnel in South Korea’s defense. Almost nothing could give Negroes a greater sense of belonging to this nation than the right to die for it on a basis of equality...

Although black soldiers achieved the first victory in Yech’on, the situation of the UN troops in Korea remained unstable. American troops and their allies continued to struggle in Korea’s rugged terrain against the North Korean fighting ability and high stamina. In early September 1950, the loss of Battle Mountain, a hill the opposing sides had long fought over, made the front pages. North Korean troops had broken through American lines. All units on the battlefront were struggling and the North Korean troops again proved superior to Americans, white and black alike.¹ Yet it was, once more, black soldiers who came...

Today, sixty years after the end of the Korean War in 1953, military integration has become a reality. African Americans can be found in all positions and ranks of the military.¹ In 1989, Colin Powell became the first black man to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. When he joined the armed forces in 1958, five years after the stalemate in Korea, the military, according to his memoir, “was the only place . . . where a young black kid could now dream; the only place, where the color of your guts and the color of your...