"Negroes at War", Life magazine
Title
"Negroes at War", Life magazine
Date
circa 1943
Creator
Time, Inc.
Source
World War II Vertical File
Rights
All images in this collection either are protected by copyright or are the property of the Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center, Inc., and/or the copyright holder as appropriate. To order a reproduction or to inquire about permission to publish, please contact archives@auctr.edu with specific object file name.
Identifier
auc.146.0016_001.doc
auc.146.0016_002.doc
auc.146.0016_003.doc
auc.146.0016_004.doc
auc.146.0016_005.doc
auc.146.0016_006.doc
auc.146.0016_007.doc
auc.146.0016_008.doc
auc.146.0016_009.doc
auc.146.0016_0010.doc
auc.146.0016_0011.doc
Format
image/jpeg
Language
en
Contributor
Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library
Subject
African American soldiers; United States--Armed Forces--African Americans
Type
Magazines (periodicals)
Text
Negroes at War
All they want now is a fair chance to fight
The picture above of an all-Negro crew in a fast new 13-ton U.S. Army tank will probably be a surprise to many U.S. citizens. But this summer it could be duplicated hundreds of times at training camps throughout the country. By next spring it could be duplicated several thousand times. The U.S. Army is getting rid of its old prejudices against the Negro and is putting him where he will do the most good – in the front ranks of its fighting men. At Camp Claiborne, La., where this picture was taken, the white colonel commanding a Negro outfit told LIFE Photographer K. Chester: “I’m a cotton-patch Southerner myself, and I don’t call these boys niggers. I call them American soldiers and damned good ones!”
This is bad news for the propagandists of Germany and Japan, who have long nursed a delusion that the 13,000,000 U.S. Negroes were ripe for rebellion and would surely refuse to fight. It is perfectly true that U.S. Negroes have never had a square deal from the U.S. white majority, but they know their lot could be far worse under the racial fanatics of the Axis. Now, when their country needs them, they are glad to work and fight and die alongside their white fellow-citizens. That is the spirit which will some day wipe every trace of racial bigotry off the map of America.
Negro troops have a fighting tradition
Negro soldiers have fought under all the great generals, in all the great wars and in most of the famous battles of U.S. history. And they have fought well. A Negro, Crispus Attucks, was the first American to fall under British fire in the Boston Massacre of 1770. Negroes fought beside the Minute Men at Bunker Hill and the Continentals at Red Bank, N.J., where George Washington himself singled them out for praise. When Andrew Jackson stopped the British invaders at New Orleans in 1815, a battalion of “free men of color” formed part of his front line. In the Civil War, 161 regiments of Negro troops turned the tide for the North; without their help, said president Lincoln, “neither the present nor any coming administration can save the Union.” In the State of Mississippi alone more Negro soldiers enlisted to fight for the Union than white men did for the Confederacy.
Negro cavalrymen like those above chased Indians in the West and rescued the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill. In World War I, more than 200,000 Negro troops went to France. One of them, Private Henry Johnson, an ex-red cap from Albany, got into a battle with 24 Germans in a no-man’s-land outpost. He killed four of them with bullets, rifle butt and bolo knife, probably killed a fifth with grenades, wounded and drove off all the others. The French called this “The Battle of Henry Johnson.”
This proud record has already been extended in World War II. At Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, a Negro messman, Dorie Miller, dashed to the bridge of his ship, helped carry his mortally wounded captain to a place of greater safety and manned a machine gun until ordered below. He has just been awarded a Navy Cross. In the Philippines the first man of the armored forces to fall in action was Private Robert Brooks, son of a Negro sharecropper of Sadieville, Ky. Today the main parade ground at Fort Knox, headquarters for the U.S. armored forces, is named Brooks Field in his honor.
They thrive on Army work, food and fun
For the average Negro volunteer or draftee, Army life is no hardship. He is used to hard physical work, which is nine-tenths of a soldier’s routine. He wants to learn about machinery and motors, and the Army gives him a chance. He likes the feel of a weapon in his hands, and thoroughly enjoys bayonet practice. The food is better than he generally gets at home. The base pay of an Army private ($21 a month, soon to be raised to $46 or more) does not look too meager. His living quarters, food, pay, furloughs, opportunities for recreation are equal to that received by white soldiers. There has been a decided increase in the number of Negroes attending officer-candidate schools. Except in the Air Corps, they are being trained in the same classes with whites.
Disturbances growing out of race relations in the Army have been few and widely scattered. One such disturbance at Alexandria, La., in January 1942, started when a Negro soldier resisted arrest by a white policeman. A crowd gathered and civilian policemen and one military policeman indulged in indiscriminate and unnecessary shooting. Twenty-nine Negro soldiers were injured, one of them critically. (Rumors that four or more were killed were denied by the Army.)
The sensational Negro press has done its best to magnify affairs such as this into “race riots,” but there is every indication that cooperation and friendly feeling between the races is today higher than ever in the Army.
On June 1, 1942, a long-standing wrong against American Negroes was removed when the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps began taking colored recruits for combat duty (see photos above & below).
Harlem buzzes with civilian defense tasks
Probably there is no place in the nation where civil defense is now a more burning topic than in Harlem, largest Negro community in the world. There are 300,000 Negroes in Harlem and at least a quarter of them are doing some kind of war work. About 15,000 are enrolled as air-raid wardens. Countless Harlem women are learning first aid, knitting sweaters, serving in canteens, studying internal combustion engines. Even the angels of Father Divine are being fingerprinted by Harlem branches of the American Women’s Voluntary Services. Soon after Pearl Harbor some Harlem streetwalkers began enrolling as air-raid wardens and wearing white badges on their arms but the police stopped that.
The Citizens of Harlem have real cause for their concern. They live in one of the most overcrowded city areas in the world. There is one Harlem block which has between 3,200 and 3,300 residents. When and if enemy bombs fall in Harlem, the slaughter will be terrific. And volunteers like those pictured on these pages will have to bear the first brunt of such a calamity.
Dawn patrol is Harlem’s own war idea
Every day at 4 a.m. a procession like the one below winds through the streets of Harlem. This is the “dawn patrol” of Air Raid Protection Zone 2, 28th police precinct, New York City. Wardens of Zone 2 are not satisfied to stand the usual watches in eight-hour shifts. They get together in groups of 30 or 40 before dawn each day and drill until the sun comes up. Around 6 they all have breakfast in their headquarters (left) and the ones who have jobs go off to work. The others go home and sleep.
These early morning hours are full of excitement for members of the dawn patrol. First they select an “objective” – a roped-off street or a roof top. Then they sound an imaginary air-raid alarm. Then the imaginary “bombs” begin to fall – on churches, schools and big apartment houses. Casualties are reported, rescues made, fires put out, “broken” water mains repaired – all in vivid make-believe. At the end of a busy hour or two the patrol drafts a written report. Usually these reports are straight factual accounts of work done, but one day last winter an enthusiastic dawn patroller wrote: “The weather was fair and cold to the ladies’ hands and legs, but all was in good spirits as we marched on to the Zone 2 headquarters.”
All they want now is a fair chance to fight
The picture above of an all-Negro crew in a fast new 13-ton U.S. Army tank will probably be a surprise to many U.S. citizens. But this summer it could be duplicated hundreds of times at training camps throughout the country. By next spring it could be duplicated several thousand times. The U.S. Army is getting rid of its old prejudices against the Negro and is putting him where he will do the most good – in the front ranks of its fighting men. At Camp Claiborne, La., where this picture was taken, the white colonel commanding a Negro outfit told LIFE Photographer K. Chester: “I’m a cotton-patch Southerner myself, and I don’t call these boys niggers. I call them American soldiers and damned good ones!”
This is bad news for the propagandists of Germany and Japan, who have long nursed a delusion that the 13,000,000 U.S. Negroes were ripe for rebellion and would surely refuse to fight. It is perfectly true that U.S. Negroes have never had a square deal from the U.S. white majority, but they know their lot could be far worse under the racial fanatics of the Axis. Now, when their country needs them, they are glad to work and fight and die alongside their white fellow-citizens. That is the spirit which will some day wipe every trace of racial bigotry off the map of America.
Negro troops have a fighting tradition
Negro soldiers have fought under all the great generals, in all the great wars and in most of the famous battles of U.S. history. And they have fought well. A Negro, Crispus Attucks, was the first American to fall under British fire in the Boston Massacre of 1770. Negroes fought beside the Minute Men at Bunker Hill and the Continentals at Red Bank, N.J., where George Washington himself singled them out for praise. When Andrew Jackson stopped the British invaders at New Orleans in 1815, a battalion of “free men of color” formed part of his front line. In the Civil War, 161 regiments of Negro troops turned the tide for the North; without their help, said president Lincoln, “neither the present nor any coming administration can save the Union.” In the State of Mississippi alone more Negro soldiers enlisted to fight for the Union than white men did for the Confederacy.
Negro cavalrymen like those above chased Indians in the West and rescued the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill. In World War I, more than 200,000 Negro troops went to France. One of them, Private Henry Johnson, an ex-red cap from Albany, got into a battle with 24 Germans in a no-man’s-land outpost. He killed four of them with bullets, rifle butt and bolo knife, probably killed a fifth with grenades, wounded and drove off all the others. The French called this “The Battle of Henry Johnson.”
This proud record has already been extended in World War II. At Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, a Negro messman, Dorie Miller, dashed to the bridge of his ship, helped carry his mortally wounded captain to a place of greater safety and manned a machine gun until ordered below. He has just been awarded a Navy Cross. In the Philippines the first man of the armored forces to fall in action was Private Robert Brooks, son of a Negro sharecropper of Sadieville, Ky. Today the main parade ground at Fort Knox, headquarters for the U.S. armored forces, is named Brooks Field in his honor.
They thrive on Army work, food and fun
For the average Negro volunteer or draftee, Army life is no hardship. He is used to hard physical work, which is nine-tenths of a soldier’s routine. He wants to learn about machinery and motors, and the Army gives him a chance. He likes the feel of a weapon in his hands, and thoroughly enjoys bayonet practice. The food is better than he generally gets at home. The base pay of an Army private ($21 a month, soon to be raised to $46 or more) does not look too meager. His living quarters, food, pay, furloughs, opportunities for recreation are equal to that received by white soldiers. There has been a decided increase in the number of Negroes attending officer-candidate schools. Except in the Air Corps, they are being trained in the same classes with whites.
Disturbances growing out of race relations in the Army have been few and widely scattered. One such disturbance at Alexandria, La., in January 1942, started when a Negro soldier resisted arrest by a white policeman. A crowd gathered and civilian policemen and one military policeman indulged in indiscriminate and unnecessary shooting. Twenty-nine Negro soldiers were injured, one of them critically. (Rumors that four or more were killed were denied by the Army.)
The sensational Negro press has done its best to magnify affairs such as this into “race riots,” but there is every indication that cooperation and friendly feeling between the races is today higher than ever in the Army.
On June 1, 1942, a long-standing wrong against American Negroes was removed when the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps began taking colored recruits for combat duty (see photos above & below).
Harlem buzzes with civilian defense tasks
Probably there is no place in the nation where civil defense is now a more burning topic than in Harlem, largest Negro community in the world. There are 300,000 Negroes in Harlem and at least a quarter of them are doing some kind of war work. About 15,000 are enrolled as air-raid wardens. Countless Harlem women are learning first aid, knitting sweaters, serving in canteens, studying internal combustion engines. Even the angels of Father Divine are being fingerprinted by Harlem branches of the American Women’s Voluntary Services. Soon after Pearl Harbor some Harlem streetwalkers began enrolling as air-raid wardens and wearing white badges on their arms but the police stopped that.
The Citizens of Harlem have real cause for their concern. They live in one of the most overcrowded city areas in the world. There is one Harlem block which has between 3,200 and 3,300 residents. When and if enemy bombs fall in Harlem, the slaughter will be terrific. And volunteers like those pictured on these pages will have to bear the first brunt of such a calamity.
Dawn patrol is Harlem’s own war idea
Every day at 4 a.m. a procession like the one below winds through the streets of Harlem. This is the “dawn patrol” of Air Raid Protection Zone 2, 28th police precinct, New York City. Wardens of Zone 2 are not satisfied to stand the usual watches in eight-hour shifts. They get together in groups of 30 or 40 before dawn each day and drill until the sun comes up. Around 6 they all have breakfast in their headquarters (left) and the ones who have jobs go off to work. The others go home and sleep.
These early morning hours are full of excitement for members of the dawn patrol. First they select an “objective” – a roped-off street or a roof top. Then they sound an imaginary air-raid alarm. Then the imaginary “bombs” begin to fall – on churches, schools and big apartment houses. Casualties are reported, rescues made, fires put out, “broken” water mains repaired – all in vivid make-believe. At the end of a busy hour or two the patrol drafts a written report. Usually these reports are straight factual accounts of work done, but one day last winter an enthusiastic dawn patroller wrote: “The weather was fair and cold to the ladies’ hands and legs, but all was in good spirits as we marched on to the Zone 2 headquarters.”
Citation
Time, Inc., “"Negroes at War", Life magazine,” GLAM Center for Collaborative Teaching and Learning - Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library, accessed November 22, 2024, https://glamportal.auctr.edu/items/show/575.