Making the men of the 93rd: African-American servicemen in the years of the Great Depression and the Second World War, 1935-1947.

Abstract

Scholars concerned with the African-American experience in World War II have employed approaches underscoring combat efficiency and discipline. As a result, questions regarding the ways in which black soldiers constructed their identities as workers and the sites of such constructions remain muted. Thus, instead of a fully constituted soldier whose identity is shaped along race, class, space and generational lines, we are presented with a soldier whose identity is largely disconnected from Afro-American society. During their tour of duty in the Second World War, the men of the all-black 93rd Infantry Division became central players in a triangular power relationship that was forged between Black servicepeople, African-American society, and the federal government. The seeds of this relationship had not only taken root in the lives of black 93rd Servicemen in their respective communities; but were also sustained and nurtured in their experiences during the Great Depression and participation in the mass-socialization programs of the 1930s. While the exigencies of war brought the three segments of society closer together, events that occurred in 1943 illuminated the ideological splits between them as black soldiers discovered that they were fighting a three front war with the Axis enemy, the U.S. government, and with African-American society. By 1946, the relationship between returning black 93rd veterans, African-American Society, and their government was transformed as each tried to come to terms with postwar America. Encompassing the fields of labor studies, cultural studies and military history and based on extensive interviews and archival research, this study examines the making of African-American servicepeople in the U.S. Army during the Second World War. lt focuses on how the soldiers themselves, molded by their immediate past, shaped the parameters of their military experiences. Conversely, their military experiences reshaped the worldviews of black 93rd Servicepeople and, in turn, altered relationships with loved ones, neighbors, and other segments of African-American Society.