![]() “The trailblazing Tuskegee Airmen, 92nd Infantry Division, Montford Point Marines, and the 761st ‘Black Panther’ Tank Battalion served bravely in combat,” writes Delmont, “and Black troops shed blood in the iconic battles at Normandy and Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge.” As the author shows in this illuminating history, military training camps were brutally segregated, and civilian Black Americans faced obstacles when applying for jobs in war factories. Once they were allowed to serve on the battlefield, they were indispensable. Even under appalling conditions, they served courageously, and the final victories in Europe and the Pacific would not have been possible without them. Due to prejudice among White military leaders, most Black soldiers were assigned roles in construction, transport, supply, and maintenance. Delmont sets the record straight.ĭelmont, a professor of history at Dartmouth who has written numerous books on civil rights and Black history, notes that he was surprised when his initial research revealed the number of Black men and women who served during the war: more than 1 million. ![]() Black Americans played crucial roles in nearly every theater of World War II, but they have been largely ignored in historical accounts. ![]()
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