1941-1945
Day 21
1941: Detroit Builds Black Housing In White Neighborhood- Whites Riot
Before and during World War II, the city of Detroit, Michigan, was a hub for economic activity that attracted a large influx of new residents. Many newcomers were African Americans fleeing racial violence and inequality in the rural South, in a wave known as the Great Migration. Those who resettled in Detroit felt the city offered new opportunities for economic mobility.
Housing scarcity was a major challenge for growing Detroit, as new construction did not keep pace with the increasing population, and residential segregation created dangerous slums. Black families were banned from most public housing, restricted to over-crowded neighborhoods, and often forced to pay higher rents to live in dilapidated homes without indoor plumbing. They also faced hostility from the local Ku Klux Klan, police, and groups of white workers.
In June 1941, Detroit policymakers approved plans to build the Sojourner Truth Homes, a public housing project for African Americans, located in a white neighborhood. Over protest from local white people, construction was completed that year and the city authorized black families to move in starting February 28, 1942.
One day before, growing crowds of local white people marched through the housing project. On move-in day, only a few black families braved the harassment and intimidation. Some were struck with rocks. Police responded by halting the moves and arresting more than 200 black people and only three white individuals.
White people continued to riot and threaten. The City said they would find a different site to build, but could not find another spot to build. The new residents were displaced until April, when six black families moved in under the protection of 2,000 city and state officials.
Sources/Comments:
-1st Picture Description: Sign directly opposite the Sojourner Truth, a federal housing project, in Detroit, Michigan. A riot was caused by white neighbors' attempt to prevent African American tenants from moving in. From: Photos used in the 1984 Truman Centennial Exhibit. Library of Congress Photo Number: LC-USW-3-1.
-2nd Picture Description: Please notice the bottom line. Totally disgusting. People simply wanted a place to live- they weren’t coming to rape women.
Day 22
1942: Hit The N----- Baby.
Honestly, I had to look this up to see if it was true. I simply couldn’t believe that men, women, and children, after attending church, would go to the county fair and participate in a “game” that involved throwing a baseball at a baby in the stomach and cheering if it threw up.
But, disgustingly, it is true. And, it happened until the 1950’s, which means there are tens of thousands of people alive today who participated in this. (I chose 1942 because that is the year this picture was taken) This is a story that brought me to my knees:
Sources/Comments:
Click HERE
Day 23
1943: Whites Riot, Maime, and Kill Black Workers After Black Workers Promoted To Welders
On May 25, 1943, a riot broke out at the Alabama Dry Dock Shipping Company after 12 African Americans were promoted to “highly powered” positions of welding.
The Alabama Dry Dock and Shipping Company built and maintained U.S. Navy Ships during World War I and World War II. During World War II, the company was the largest employer in Mobile. In 1941, the company began hiring African American men in unskilled positions. By 1943, Mobile shipyards employed 50,000 workers and African American men and women held 7,000 of those jobs. Though small, this increase in black employees did not please white workers.
In the spring of 1943, in response to President Roosevelt's Fair Employment Practices Committee issuing directives to elevate African Americans to skilled positions, as well as years of pressure from local black leaders and the NAACP, the Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company reluctantly agreed to promote twelve black workers to the role of welder -- a position previously reserved for white employees.
Shortly after the new welders finished their first shift, an estimated 4,000 white shipyard workers and community members armed with pipes, clubs, and other dangerous weapons attacked any black employee they could find. Two black men were thrown into the Mobile River by the mobs, while others jumped in to escape serious injury. The National Guard was called to restore order; although no one was killed, more than fifty people were seriously injured, and several weeks passed before African American workers could safely return to work.
Even after the attack, many white employees remained defiant and refused to return to work unless they received a guarantee that African Americans would no longer be hired. When the federal government intervened, the company created four segregated shipways where African Americans could hold any position with the exception of foreman. African Americans working on the rest of the shipyard were relegated to the low-paying, unskilled tasks they had historically performed.
Sources/Comments:
I believe this story is important because it shows how blacks were never allowed to "pull themselves up by the bootstraps." Whites wouldn't let them get better jobs, earn more money, or get promoted. They were (are?) continually pushed down, over and over and over again. How are they supposed to better their family situation when they are killed for being promoted at a job???
THIS is a great and short (10 minutes) video about this
Click HERE
Day 24
1944: World War II Black Soldiers Denied Medals For Fighting Alongside Whites Who Did Get Medals
WWII was incredibly rough for blacks as they fought against Nazis in Europe, and against whites at home. They often refer to this time period as the “War on Two Fronts.”
I was going to talk about George Stinney- a 14 year old boy falsely accused of murder and sent to the electric chair- but this medal issue seemed more pertinent. But, please read about George Stinney in the comments as his story is absolutely gut wrenching. Oh, and then there’s also Irene Morgan who was arrested in Virginia for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white woman (you thought Rosa Parks was the first one to do that, didn’t you?)- also in the comments.
But for today, my main story is how blacks were denied their rightful medals. In 1944, black soldiers fought valiantly alongside white soldiers at Peleliu on D-Day. The whites all received medals of honor, but no blacks were awarded a medal, even though General Repurtus said they absolutely deserved it as they had fought just as valiantly as the whites.
Sadly, this theme played out over and over again in WWII. Blacks did everything right, obeyed every order, fought for their country along with my grandpa and so many of our parents and grandparents. But, instead of being honored for their service to this country as they should have been, they were denied the honors given to whites- and, as you will soon see in subsequent posts, they were often murdered and beaten for wearing their uniform in The United States. Whites made a point of ensuring that “just because you fought in the war, that doesn’t make you any better than a dog.”
It breaks my heart! The “War on Two Fronts” that blacks endured was and is real. In order to understand the complicated history that many blacks have with our country, I believe it is imperative that we understand that the America they were fighting for in WWII was a very different America than what my grandfather fought for.
Sources/Comments:
On June 16, 1944, George Stinney Jr., a ninety-pound, black, fourteen-year-old boy, was executed in the electric chair in Columbia, South Carolina. Three months earlier, on March 24, George and his sister were playing in their yard when two young white girls briefly approached and asked where they could find flowers. Hours later, the girls failed to return home and a search party was organized to find them. George joined the search party and casually mentioned to a bystander that he had seen the girls earlier. The following morning, their dead bodies were found in a shallow ditch.
George was immediately arrested for the murders and subjected to hours of interrogation without his parents or an attorney. The sheriff later claimed that George confessed to the murders, though no written or signed statement was presented. George's father was fired from his job and his family forced to flee amidst threats on their lives. On March 26, a mob attempted to lynch George but he had already been moved to an out-of-town jail.
On April 24, George Stinney faced a sham trial virtually alone. No African Americans were allowed inside the courthouse and his court-appointed attorney, a tax lawyer with political aspirations, failed to call a single witness. The prosecution presented the sheriff's testimony regarding George's alleged confession as the only evidence of his guilt. An all-white jury deliberated for ten minutes before convicting George Stinney of rape and murder, and the judge promptly sentenced the fourteen-year-old to death. Despite appeals from black advocacy groups, Governor Olin Johnston refused to intervene. George Stinney remains the youngest person executed in the United States in the twentieth century.
Seventy years later, a South Carolina judge held a two-day hearing, which included testimony from three of George’s surviving siblings, members of the search party, and several experts. The state argued at the hearing that -- despite all the unfairness in this case -- George’s conviction should stand. The trial court disagreed and vacated the conviction, finding that George Stinney was fundamentally deprived of due process throughout the proceedings against him, that the alleged confession “simply cannot be said to be known and voluntary,” that the court-appointed attorney “did little to nothing” to defend George, and that his representation was “the essence of being ineffective.” The judge concluded: “I can think of no greater injustice.”
Click HERE
Day 25
1945: Black Family Killed After Refusing to Move From White California Neighborhood
On December 16, 1945, the Fontana, California, home of the Short family erupted in flames, killing Helen Short and her two children, Barry, 9, and Carol Ann, 7. Husband and father O'Day H. Short survived the explosion but stayed in critical condition at a nearby hospital for several weeks until he also succumbed to his injuries. Until their deaths, the Shorts were the first and only black family living in their neighborhood.
Initially organized as a collection of chicken farms and citrus groves in the early twentieth century, by the early 1940s, the opening of a wartime steel mill had transformed the small San Bernardino County town of Fontana into an industrial center. As the community grew and became more diverse, strict segregation lines emerged: black families moving out of the overcrowded Los Angeles area were relegated to living in the rocky plains of “North Fontana” and working in the dirtiest departments of the mill. Ku Klux Klan activity also surged throughout Southern California during this time period, with white supremacists poised to terrorize black and Chicano veterans of WWII returning with ideas of racial equality.
This was reality in the fall of 1945, when O’day H. Short – a Mississippi native and Los Angeles civil rights activist – purchased a tract of Fontana land in the white section of town and made arrangements to move there with his family. As the Shorts built their modest home and prepared to live in it full time, local forces of all kinds tried to stop them. In early December 1945, “vigilantes” visited Mr. Short and ordered him to move or risk harm to his family; he refused and reported the threats to the FBI and local sheriff. Sheriff’s deputies did not offer protection and instead reiterated the warning that Short should leave before his family was harmed. Shortly after, members of the Fontana Chamber of Commerce visited the home, encouraging Mr. Short to move to the North Fontana area, and offering to buy his home. He refused.
Just days later, an explosion “of unusual intensity” destroyed the home, killing Mr. Short’s wife and children. He survived for two weeks, shielded from the knowledge of the other deaths, but died in January 1946 after the local D.A. bluntly informed him of his family’s fate during an investigative interview.
Local officials initially concluded that the fire was an accident, caused by Mr. Short’s own lighting of an outdoor lamp. After surviving family members, the black press, and the Los Angeles NAACP protested, a formal inquest was held, at which an independent arson investigator obtained by the NAACP testified that the fire had clearly been intentionally set. Despite this testimony and evidence of the harassment the Short family had endured in the weeks leading to the fire, local officials again concluded the explosion was an accident and closed the case. No criminal investigation was ever opened, no arrests or prosecutions were made, and residential segregation persisted in Fontana for over 25 more years.
Because the family was light skinned, not everyone realized the family was black. The seller of the property did not, for example. Once Mr. Short bought the property and started building, the city wanted to buy the land back and refuse to let him build because of his skin color. Mr. Short refused to give in, and threats started coming in. Of course, nobody was ever charged with a crime.
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