During 1942, the so-called race problem became to many Americans for the first time, a world question instead of a national or sectional question. The attitude of the people of Burma, India, Malaya, and other Pacific areas in insisting that they share the democracy for which the war is being fought had profound repercussions on the Negro question in the United States.
The struggle for justice and opportunity within the United States became more evident. Over and over again leaders of Negro opinion voiced the aspiration of 13,000,000 Negro Americans not only to be permitted to share in winning the war, but also to make democracy more of a reality in the United States by the abolition of lynching, disfranchisement by means of poll taxes and 'Democratic white primaries,' discrimination in employment and education, and the whole caste system based on color. This spirit was manifested in the phenomenal growth in size and activity of agencies like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. But this was more than a racial aspiration. The pronouncements of leaders of world opinion like President Roosevelt, Vice-President Henry Wallace, Wendell Willkie, Sumner Welles, and Chiang Kai-shek that World War II is a struggle for freedom of all men everywhere helped to give hope and direction to the struggle of Negroes for freedom.
Here are some of the high points of that struggle. On Oct. 13 the House of Representatives passed the Geyer bill to abolish the poll tax in eight Southern states by an overwhelming vote of 252-84. When the bill reached the Senate, a determined filibuster was waged by Southern Democratic Senators aided behind the scenes by some Northern Republicans. The filibuster was successful in temporarily postponing action on the bill. But there was widespread indignation throughout the country at the stoppage of the Senate's work by the filibuster. Labor, civic, church and other groups which supported the movement to abolish the poll tax immediately planned to renew the fight in the 78th Congress not only to abolish the poll tax, but also to support legislation to reduce representation as provided in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of those states which improperly restrict exercise of the right to vote.
In courts of law numerous cases involving the differential in salaries paid to Negroes and white teachers doing the same work were successfully argued in courts in Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana and Virginia. Disfranchisement by means of the white primary was also attacked in the courts. In a case arising in Texas, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals decided against Lonnie E. Smith, a Negro who was barred from participation in the primaries, but appeal of that decision was immediately taken to the United States Supreme Court where it was expected to be argued early in 1943.
One of the most fundamental and difficult of problems — denial of employment to minorities, particularly Negroes — was attacked relentlessly throughout 1942. Modest gains were made chiefly through the instrumentality of the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice. The necessity for such an agency was demonstrated by Fortune magazine through its poll of employers which showed that 56.3 per cent of these employers hired no Negroes during peacetime, while 47.5 per cent still refused despite the urgent need for skilled labor. The Fortune poll also revealed that less than 10 per cent of the employes were Negroes in 29.8 per cent of these plants, and most of these Negroes were employed in custodial or unskilled, poorly-paid jobs. But even the FEPC was threatened with destruction when at the end of the year Paul McNutt, Chairman of the War Manpower Commission, suddenly ordered the 'indefinite postponement' of hearings scheduled to begin in January on discrimination by railroad unions and railroads. A storm of protest arose, coming not only from Negroes but other minorities, church groups, the CIO and AF of L, and other organizations and individuals.
The bright spot of the condition of the Negro in the armed forces continued to be the success of training white and Negro officers even in the South in the same Officer Candidate schools. Despite this success, however, announcement was made late in December that renewal of the pattern of segregation was to be inaugurated at Jefferson Barracks, Mo., by training Negro officers for ground duty with the Army Air Forces. This step, together with other instances of refusal of the Army Air Corps to permit the proper training of Negroes as fliers caused the resignation of Judge William H. Hastie, Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War.
Negro women successfully completed training as WAACS and began service as Third Officers. The records of a number of them were so excellent that they were promoted to First Officers at the year's end. Opportunities for enlistment and training for ratings higher than messman were inaugurated in the Navy, although Negroes were still barred from training as officers, and Negro women were barred from the WAVES. Despite these handicaps, some Negroes demonstrated valor which brought nationwide praise. Dorie Miller, 22-year-old Negro messman, was commended by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox on Apr. 1 for 'distinguished devotion to duty, extraordinary courage and disregard for his own personal safety' at Pearl Harbor. After the Captain had been killed on the bridge of his ship, Miller manned and operated a machine gun against Japanese planes. Charles Jackson French, a Negro messman from Newark, N. J., towed a raft on which were a group of exhausted fellow seamen and officers for six miles through shark-infested waters following the torpedoing of a United States destroyer.
Serious difficulties arose in England, Australia, India and other countries when some American white soldiers sought to transplant racial prejudices to these countries. Recommendations were made to the War Department that it give special instruction to all American soldiers in an effort to acquaint them with the history and the contributions to civilization of the peoples of these countries as an antidote to racial prejudice.
Numerous conferences were held in Hollywood between leaders of the motion picture industry, Wendell Willkie, and Walter White, of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, regarding the effect of the limitation of Negroes in motion pictures to comic or menial roles. All of the leading Hollywood producers agreed to broaden the treatment and to picture the Negro hereafter as a normal human being and as an integral part of the life of America and of the world.
Famed Negro singers like Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson continued to fill the largest concert halls in all parts of the country. A brilliant young Negro orchestra conductor, Dean Dixon, served as guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic at Lewisohn Stadium. In other cultural fields, a number of notable books by and about Negroes was published during 1942, including Angel Mo' and Her Son Roland Hayes, a biography of the distinguished tenor; For My People, by Mildred Walker, a young Negro woman whose volume won the annual Yale University young poets' award; J. Saunders Redding's No Day of Triumph, and Zora Neale Hurston's Dust Tracks on a Road.
The most notable and gratifying trend during the year was the increasing attention and the sound treatment given the Negro in magazines of wide circulation.
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