African-Americans During Ww2

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Before the global war started in 1939 between the Allies and the Axis, America decided to stay out of the war. It was not that long when Japans attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941 making President Roosevelt declared war on the emperor of Japan. As the war progress, Adolf Hitler’s and his armies conquered many part of Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa. But at home, segregation was a problem for many African-Americans who wanted to fly as a pilots. For instance, African-American were not allowed to fight during WWII because of the Jim Crow laws and a report that came out in 1925 that says Black-men was unfit to serve in the military. As the war got more intense, tension from African-American civil rights leader, make President Franklin D. …show more content…

They were brave and determined young men willing to volunteers to fight for their country. Contrary before the war, African-American was only trained to help with support duties and were not allowed to go on frontline or where white soldiers where. Many of them were facing the Jim Crow laws, racism, and segregation in the nation. But, it was not until 1940s when pressure came from the African-American leader to put more pressurize on President Franklin D. Roosevelt to allot the government to sponsor Black-men to be train as pilots. Even though, President Roosevelt approved the request of the African-American calls, some government officer still did not believe that African-American was fit to be a pilots. For instance, the only way African-American was allocate in WWII was to do experiment which was, “The former was a program formulated by the United States War Department to prove that black men were unfit to fly airplane (Homan an Reilly 12).” One of the experiment was to allow those men to take a physical and mental qualifications test before they could be accepted in the Air Forces. The need to be a pilot is that you must be “unmarried male citizen of the United States, between the ages of twenty and twenty-six, completed one-half credits required for a degree at a recognized college or universities; of excellent character, excellent health and there was no mention of color men (Holman and Reilly 20).” Furthermore, it was after two years training at the Tuskegee institute (now Tuskegee university) established by Booker Washington in 1881 graduated their first all-black Airmen. The first Airmen was ready to go to battle in 1943, many of them were send to Northern Africa knew as the 99th Pursuit Fighter