The Impact of WWII on Native Americans and blacks
World War Two changed the lives of millions of people throughout the world. Never before had warfare taken such a toll on humanity. For most, this war was a horrible event that did nothing but take the lives of loved ones. Nothing good could have came from such carnage. Or could it? One thing that people have learned through the generations is that in order for things to get better, they often have to get worse first. People were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the betterment of their culture. In the cases of Native Americans and African Americans, the war proved to be a stage in which they could prove themselves to the world, and try to fight for a better life. African Americans and Native Americans had vastly different experiences during the war. A large majority of Indians made a smooth transition into the military, joining non-segregated units, unlike blacks who still had to obey local Jim Crow laws. Indians were often openly embraced by their white counterparts, and were indiscriminately called "Chief" by their buddies. Some would think this as a derogatory term, but the Indians took it as a positive reference to their ancestors who had been great warriors. Many whites wanted to fight alongside the Indians, for
He came up with the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) which was summed up as, "An act to conserve Indian lands and resources; to extend to Indians the right to form business and other organizations; to establish a credit system for Indians; to grant certain rights of home rule to Indians; to provide for vocational education of Indians; and for other purposes. Urban and rural, they could be found everywhere. All those words were nothing but empty promises to a people who desperately needed something to grasp onto. Paltry numbers compared to the size of the overall force. They were excluded from the Army Air Corps and Marines altogether. Throughout the course of the war, blacks were treated as outcasts and shunned by a large portion of the military, while the Indians were for the most part, treated with dignity and respect. In 1939, the black presence in the army consisted of 3,640 soldiers and five officers. Blacks had it hard in the military, being relegated to positions such as messmen, cooks, and servants. It is known that the Indians tried to live up to these expectations, and often exceeded them. The military didn't stop the practice, and the government did nothing to help. As a reaction to this, the Roosevelt administration enacted a policy of nondiscrimination within the armed services. They were integrated into the military, and often times efforts were made to keep Indian units from forming. Blacks on the other hand, were living in mainstream America. Their struggle for racial equality should have culminated with America entering the war, after all, we were in this to defeat fascism and discredit the ideology of racism.
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