The Dangers Of Segregation In Leon Bass I Saw The Walking Dead

The Dangers of Segregation, as seen in Leon Bass’ “I Saw The Walking Dead”
The source “I Saw The Walking Dead” is an interview in which an African-American WWII veteran named Leon Bass recounts his experience upon liberating the Buchenwald Nazi concentration camp. In addition to this, he relays his thoughts in regards to the liberation of the camp, and relates it to his experience of the war overall to the unfair treatment of African Americans in the United States, most notably through the segregation that they were made to endure at the time. The source is meant to inform its readers on African-Americans experiences throughout the war, relay the extreme effects that can arise from segregation, and shows its historical significance through

This is due in part to the large number of African-Americans that had travelled across the United States in order to escape from the South’s violent racism in the early 1900’s. Despite this move, they continued to face significant racial discrimination, even up until WWII, where they struggled to find employment despite the country’s pressing need for a larger military (Burton, March 2nd, 2023) after WWI. The Executive Order 8802, signed by Franklin Roosevelt, the President of the United States at the time, eventually allowed them more job opportunities, as it “banned racial discrimination in Federal Industries” (Burton, March 2nd, 2023). At this time, the United States attached a moral mission to defeating Germany specifically, due to their being horrified at the discovery of its Nazi concentration

While the United States’ history of racial discrimination and segregation is commonly known, the source itself works to highlight how deeply rooted racial discrimination was in America at the time, considering how it continued even during wartime, against African-American soldiers who “had sworn to protect and defend” (Bass, 1). As Leon Bass became involved in the Civil Rights movement (Bass 1) during the 1960’s, it can be assumed that his time fighting in WWII influenced his future decision to join in the fight against America’s segregationist laws, along with many other black soldiers'. On a larger scale, by connecting his own experience to what occurred at Buchenwald, the source also reveals the hypocrisy in much of the United States’ mindset. When faced with the stark example in the reasoning against Buchenwalds victims compared with the United States’ willingness to uphold segregation and their hostility towards black Americans, it is evident how they were ironically similar, which is made worse considering how much they were morally opposed to Germany’s actions. Bass’s statement on how little African-American soldiers in the war are spoken about also works as a method to show another example of how their contributions throughout history as a whole were minimized, just as they had been in regards to their influence on the progression of popular music