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To Serve My Country, to Serve My Race: The Story of the Only African-American Wacs Stationed Overseas During World War II

Name: To Serve My Country, to Serve My Race: The Story of the Only African-American Wacs Stationed Overseas During World War II
Brand: New York University Press
SKU: 9780814755877
Price: 37.99 USD
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Contributors:

Brenda L. Moore

Publisher:

New York University Press

Binding:

Paperback

Book Category:

History, Social Science

Book Subcategory:

Wars & Conflicts, Cultural & Ethnic Studies, Women's Studies

Book Topic:

World War II, American

Edition Description:

Revised Edition

Shipping & Return +

The product is eligible for a complimentary return within 30 days from the date of purchase. Furthermore, individual items are shipped within 24 hours of receiving the order.

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Specifications +

Release Date:

1997-08-01

ISBN 13:

9780814755877

Weight:

0.97 lbs

Size:

8.90 x 5.90 x 0.80 inches

Pages:

288

Mint Condition +

product description

Description

The story of the historic 6888th, the first United States Women's Army Corps unit of African American women to serve overseas

While African American men and white women were invited, if belatedly, to serve their country abroad, African American women were excluded for overseas duty throughout most of WWII. However, under political pressure from legislators like Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., the NAACP, the Black press, and even President Roosevelt, the US War Department was forced to deploy African American women to the European theater in 1945.

African American women answered the call to serve from all over the country, from every socioeconomic stratum. Stationed in France and England at the end of World War II, the 6888th brought together women like Mary Daniel Williams, a cook in the unit who signed up for the Army to escape the slums of Cleveland and to improve her ninth-grade education, and Margaret Barnes Jones, the unit's public relations officer, who grew up in a comfortable household with a politically active mother who encouraged her to challenge the system.

Despite the social, political, and economic restrictions imposed upon these women in their own country, they were eager to serve, not only out of patriotism but out of a desire to uplift their race and dispel bigoted preconceptions about their abilities. Elaine Bennett, a First Sergeant, joined because "I wanted to prove to myself and maybe to the world that we would give what we had back to the United States as a confirmation that we were full- fledged citizens."

Filled with compelling personal stories based on extensive interviews, To Serve My Country, To Serve My Race is the first book to document the lives of these courageous pioneers. It reveals how their Army experience affected them for the rest of their lives and how they, in turn, transformed the US military forever.

About the Author
Brenda L. Moore is Associate Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York, Buffalo. A Presidential Appointee to the American Battle Monuments Commission, she served on active duty for six years in the US Army in the United States and Europe.

To Serve My Country, to Serve My Race: The Story of the Only African-American Wacs Stationed Overseas During World War II

Description

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