In 1925 future German dictator, Adolph Hitler called blacks "half-ape" in his propaganda rag, Mein Kamph. He wrote, "From time to time the illustrated papers show how a Negro has become a lawyer, teacher of perhaps even a minister. It never dawned on the degenerate middle class America that this is truly a sin against all reason. It is criminal madness to train a half-ape until one believes one had made a lawyer of him."
Hitler underestimated the capabilities of men and women of African descent, who willingly helped the Allied Powers defeat Germany. One such individual was Ghana Africa native, Akasease Kofi Boakye Yiadom, who was only 14 when Hitler wrote Mein Kamph – 16 years later he would help the allies defeat the country lead by the man who believed blacks, such as Yiadom were "half-apes." Recently, this 99-year-old World War II veteran, earned his college degree again dispelling Hitler's myth.
99-Year-Old Ghanaian Man Graduates College
The man who sought to conquer the world had a distorted view of anyone who was not like him – always a dangerous view. He underestimated the depth of the capabilities of the men and women he called "half-apes." Hitler is long gone and individuals such as Yiadom are still inspiring generations to excel. I am grateful to men like Mr. Yiadom for proving Hitler wrong.
Showing posts with label Military history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Military history. Show all posts
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Thursday, December 10, 2009
INVISIBLE WARRIORS -- WORLD WAR II BLACK AMERICANS FIGHT TO SERVE
In the chaotic days after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor hundreds of patriotic American men rushed to recruiting stations – ready to defend their country. Others waited undecided about how they should respond.
On December 7, 1941 in Indianapolis future army medic and West Virginia native, Frank James was at work in the autopsy room of Indianapolis City Hospital. "I was listening to my radio and it was interrupted. There was a special announcement that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. This left me quite disturbed but at the time I didn't even know where Pearl Harbor was," he writes in his 2007 memoir titled Capers of a Medic.
James knew his life was about to change. He writes that he had experienced discrimination but still felt a fierce love for his country. "It stirred my patriotic blood and I knew from the very moment I heard the news that I simply couldn't sit at home and know our country was being attacked by an enemy."
That night James went home and told his wife, Ada he was going to join the army on Monday morning. "Ada was upset because I was going to volunteer, so I told her maybe I would not be accepted. Maybe I would be classified as a 4Fer, (anyone classified as disabled or unfit to serve in the military) but I simply must go down tomorrow and volunteer and wait and see what the result will be." James writes that he did not get much sleep that night.
In a historically black university (HBCU), Johnson C. Smith University, in Charlotte, North Carolina, a pre-theological student and future marine, Thomas McPhatter, was just another college freshman with a reputation as a radical. He would barely escape expulsion for his role in a campus protest after a coed was mistakenly accused of "un-lady-like behavior," remembers McPhatter. December 7, 1941 would change his life – he would soon become a Montford Point Marine – the first black men allowed to become marines.
In San Diego, California, James (Pete) Ludlow who as a young boy often stood outside the fence at Naval Air Station North Island watching ace navy pilots, all Caucasian, wheeling in formation in Curtis SA-3 Seaplanes, or Scout Seaplanes and dreamed of flying. When the war started he would rush to the nearest Navy Recruiting Station to enlist only to learn blacks could not become navy pilots.
In Richmond, Virginia, news of the attack would mean another college student at Virginia Union University, freshman Samuel L. Gravely Jr. the son of an army veteran would soon trade his newly earned Greek letters as an Alpha Phi Alpha for Navy seaman strips.
# # #
"UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU (IF YOU ARE WHITE)!"
The response to the attack was immediate, on Monday morning; men began lining up outside store front offices with signs in the windows that read, "Uncle Sam wants you!" What the signs did not say was "except if you are black," as many young black men quickly learned.
Young and some old men throughout the country began flocking to recruiting stations. Black men were often turned away. In an Indianapolis Army Recruiting Station, one young man who was ready to fight was Charles T. Kelly but when he spoke with an army recruiter, he was disappointed to learn the only jobs available for him were digging ditches or building bridges. "I didn't want to dig ditches," he said. He decided to try his luck with the navy.
Frank James was met with the same disappointing words when he went to enlist even though he worked as a hospital orderly. In spite of the mistreatment by recruiters, he would enlist and struggle to get the opportunity to become an army medic.
In Raleigh North Carolina John Hope Franklin, a young college professor was ready to leave his teaching position at St Augustine's College in order to serve. In an interview for a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) documentary he said, "I went down to the recruiting office, the navy to volunteer. I volunteered in response to the call they made specifically for men to operate the offices. The recruiter for the navy said, 'What can you do?' I said, “Well, I can, run an office. I can type. I can take shorthand if that’s needed.” I said, “And, oh, yes, I have a Ph.D. in history from Harvard. I wondered what he was going to say. He said, 'You have everything, but your color.' And, I said, “Well, I thought there was an emergency, but obviously there is not, so I bid you a good day. And I vowed that day that they would not get me, because they did not deserve me. If I was able – physically, mentally, every other kind of way, able and willing to serve my country – and my country turned me down on the basis of color, then my country did not deserve me. And I vowed then that they would not get me," historian and author, John Hope Franklin, >http://www.pbs.org/thewar/at_war_democracy_african_american.htm<.
Those who were accepted soon learned life in the military was no different from life on the outside – with few exceptions they would become stewards, cooks, domestics, or stevedores, not pilots or infantrymen or office clerks.
Copyright © 2009 by Sharon Dense Powell ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
On December 7, 1941 in Indianapolis future army medic and West Virginia native, Frank James was at work in the autopsy room of Indianapolis City Hospital. "I was listening to my radio and it was interrupted. There was a special announcement that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. This left me quite disturbed but at the time I didn't even know where Pearl Harbor was," he writes in his 2007 memoir titled Capers of a Medic.
James knew his life was about to change. He writes that he had experienced discrimination but still felt a fierce love for his country. "It stirred my patriotic blood and I knew from the very moment I heard the news that I simply couldn't sit at home and know our country was being attacked by an enemy."
That night James went home and told his wife, Ada he was going to join the army on Monday morning. "Ada was upset because I was going to volunteer, so I told her maybe I would not be accepted. Maybe I would be classified as a 4Fer, (anyone classified as disabled or unfit to serve in the military) but I simply must go down tomorrow and volunteer and wait and see what the result will be." James writes that he did not get much sleep that night.
In a historically black university (HBCU), Johnson C. Smith University, in Charlotte, North Carolina, a pre-theological student and future marine, Thomas McPhatter, was just another college freshman with a reputation as a radical. He would barely escape expulsion for his role in a campus protest after a coed was mistakenly accused of "un-lady-like behavior," remembers McPhatter. December 7, 1941 would change his life – he would soon become a Montford Point Marine – the first black men allowed to become marines.
In San Diego, California, James (Pete) Ludlow who as a young boy often stood outside the fence at Naval Air Station North Island watching ace navy pilots, all Caucasian, wheeling in formation in Curtis SA-3 Seaplanes, or Scout Seaplanes and dreamed of flying. When the war started he would rush to the nearest Navy Recruiting Station to enlist only to learn blacks could not become navy pilots.
In Richmond, Virginia, news of the attack would mean another college student at Virginia Union University, freshman Samuel L. Gravely Jr. the son of an army veteran would soon trade his newly earned Greek letters as an Alpha Phi Alpha for Navy seaman strips.
# # #
"UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU (IF YOU ARE WHITE)!"
The response to the attack was immediate, on Monday morning; men began lining up outside store front offices with signs in the windows that read, "Uncle Sam wants you!" What the signs did not say was "except if you are black," as many young black men quickly learned.
Young and some old men throughout the country began flocking to recruiting stations. Black men were often turned away. In an Indianapolis Army Recruiting Station, one young man who was ready to fight was Charles T. Kelly but when he spoke with an army recruiter, he was disappointed to learn the only jobs available for him were digging ditches or building bridges. "I didn't want to dig ditches," he said. He decided to try his luck with the navy.
Frank James was met with the same disappointing words when he went to enlist even though he worked as a hospital orderly. In spite of the mistreatment by recruiters, he would enlist and struggle to get the opportunity to become an army medic.
In Raleigh North Carolina John Hope Franklin, a young college professor was ready to leave his teaching position at St Augustine's College in order to serve. In an interview for a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) documentary he said, "I went down to the recruiting office, the navy to volunteer. I volunteered in response to the call they made specifically for men to operate the offices. The recruiter for the navy said, 'What can you do?' I said, “Well, I can, run an office. I can type. I can take shorthand if that’s needed.” I said, “And, oh, yes, I have a Ph.D. in history from Harvard. I wondered what he was going to say. He said, 'You have everything, but your color.' And, I said, “Well, I thought there was an emergency, but obviously there is not, so I bid you a good day. And I vowed that day that they would not get me, because they did not deserve me. If I was able – physically, mentally, every other kind of way, able and willing to serve my country – and my country turned me down on the basis of color, then my country did not deserve me. And I vowed then that they would not get me," historian and author, John Hope Franklin, >http://www.pbs.org/thewar/at_war_democracy_african_american.htm<.
Those who were accepted soon learned life in the military was no different from life on the outside – with few exceptions they would become stewards, cooks, domestics, or stevedores, not pilots or infantrymen or office clerks.
Copyright © 2009 by Sharon Dense Powell ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
WORLD WAR II INVISIBLE WARRIORS, BLACK MEN AND WOMEN FOUGHT FOR THE RIGHT TO FIGHT
When I was a very young girl I watched black and white World War II movies. The heroes in the movies I watched all seemed larger than life and so romantic – I often imagined myself in a military uniform. I suppose I was destined to follow my brother’s example and enlist in the navy. Fortunately, thanks to the service of the black men and women including my brother, who served during the World War II, I had opportunities that were unavailable to my brother.
Through the years I have studied much about World War II, and the role black men and women played in defending our country, in spite of the segregation that generation endured. I also have come to understand and appreciate that generation's valuable gift to my generation. Indeed, I would not have had the opportunity to serve in the navy and travel to exotic places if not for the selfless service of the 1.2 million black service men and women of my brother's generation. They fought two wars. One was to protect our country's freedom. But, the second required them to fight for the right – the very opportunity – to fight for their country. Their struggle proved that they were relentlessly loyal Americans. Their story is moving.
The story of black World War II service members is not just a black story; this is an American story. This is the story of ordinary Americans who loved their country and in spite of their invisibility, were willing to risk their lives defending freedoms they did not enjoy. They had a unique insight into the dangers Nazism, Fascism and Imperialism represented. The late actor, Ossie Davis, a WW II veteran himself summed it up when he said, "This was our country and we were under attack – we had to fight," in his role as Lorenzo Dufau in the 2005 movie Proud.
They were on the outside looking in, noses pressed against the glass, stamping their feet in the chill, watching the festivities within. Invisible warriors had an aching need to make others recognize them but often found that such attempts rarely succeeded
Their stories are a compelling testament to the strength of the human spirit to endure against remarkable odds. Their commitment to their country is inspiring particularly in view of the discrimination they lived through. They set the example for future generations to follow. They also came home from the war invigorated and ready to revitalize the civil rights movement, thus making it possible for a starry eyed, little farm girl like myself to follow my dream and become a sailor in the greatest navy in the world.
Copyright © Sharon D. Powell, 2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Thursday, October 8, 2009
OFF TO WAR: 1.2 MILLION STRONG: THE STORY OF AFRICAN AMERICANS WHO SERVED IN WORLD WAR II
"The man in uniform must grit his teeth, square his shoulders,
and do his best as a soldier, confident that there are millions of Americans outside the armed forces and more persons than he knows in high places within the military establishment, who will never cease fighting to remove all social barriers and every humiliating practice, which now confronts him. But only by being at all times, a first rate soldier can the man in uniform help in this battle which shall be fought and won."
Judge William H. Hasties, Dean of (HBCU) Howard University Law School, 1943
1942 – As the fighting progressed thousands of young men and eventually young women too, traded their civilian clothes for military uniforms. Some joined, but most men were drafted. After considerable pressure, draft boards began including black men, most in their early twenties in the World War II draft. Anxiously they waited for the notice, some hoping it would not come. It was a coin toss every time the postman came. When a young man received a letter with the salutation "Greetings from the President", he knew he had lost the coin toss and off to the induction station he went. There he had a choice between the Navy, Army, Coast Guard and eventually even the Marine Corps as a Montford Point Marine. Once the new inductee arrived at his training camp, he got a haircut, shots against exotic diseases and uniforms. Now he had to learn how to be a GI.
The wait for a draft notice was often unbearable. In a small farming community in Eastern North Carolina, it took so long for the draft notice to arrive that my uncle, Foster Brown, Sr. assumed he would not be called thus on a rainy Sunday evening, Uncle Foster and his future bride stood on a bridge between Halifax County and Warren County and said their vows. The couple had bought their marriage license in one county but wanted to get married in another county. The minister did not believe the marriage would be legal unless they stood on the county line. With his mother, Eva Brown, and my grandmother, Nora Alston, as witnesses my grandfather, Colonel Tee Alston, Sr. shined his headlights so the preacher could see his Bible, Uncle Foster married my mother's older sister, Alice. Unbeknownst to Uncle Foster he was not off the hook, as he soon received his "Greetings from the President" letter and on May 27, 1942 off to army boot camp Uncle Foster went. From basic training my uncle headed to Italy where he drove supply trucks. Alice waited patiently at home for her husband to come back safely.
Copyright © Sharon D. Powell, 2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
