Universally Speaking
Rahim Islam is a National Speaker and Writer, Convener of Philadelphia Community of Leaders, and President/CEO of Universal Companies, a community development and education management company headquartered in Philadelphia, PA. Follow Rahim Islam on FaceBook (Rahim Islam) & Twitter (@RahimIslamUC)
Although enslaved Blacks played an integral part in the Revolutionary War, a 1792 law actually barred blacks from bearing arms in the US army.
In the early 1860s, Blacks who volunteered for the Union army were initially rejected.
President Lincoln wrestled with the idea of employing the help of freed blacks and slaves for the Union.
For several years, he abstained from this idea for fear that the Border States would secede if Black regiments were created in the Union. However, in 1862 the number of Union volunteers plummeted and the untapped resource of Black soldiers became more and more appealing to Lincoln and Congress.
Black leaders, such as Frederick Douglass, urged Blacks to pick up the cause and fight for freedom.
In May 1863, Congress established the Bureau of Colored Troops in an effort to organize Black efforts in the war.
By the end of the Civil War, about 179,000 Black soldiers had fought for the Union Army.
This number comprised approximately 10 percent of the total Union troops. In addition, about 19,000 blacks served in the Union Navy with nearly 40,000 black soldiers dying in the process.
World War I, II – World War I was a global war that centered in Europe that began in July 1914 and lasted until November 1918 with more than 7 million causalities becoming one of the deadliest conflicts in history, paving the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved.
This war drew in all the world’s economic super powers with two opposing alliances “good versus the bad”.
By the end of the war, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist.
The maps were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germany’s colonies were parceled out among the winners.
During the Paris Peace conference of 1919, the Big Four (Britain, France, the United States and Italy) imposed their terms in a series of treaties.
The League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such an appalling conflict.
This, however, failed with weakened states, economic depression, renewed European nationalism, and the German feeling of humiliation contributing to the rise of Nazism.
These conditions eventually contributed to World War II.
World War II was also a global war and considered as the good war that lasted from 1939 to 1945.
It involved the vast majority of the world’s nations: including all of the great powers” eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis.
It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from more than 30 countries.
In a state of “total war”, the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources.
Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust (during which approximately 11 million people were killed) and the strategic bombing of industrial and population centers (during which approximately one million people were killed, including the use of two nuclear weapons in combat), it resulted in an estimated 50 million to 85 million fatalities making World War II the deadliest conflict in human history.
World War II also produced the consequences of the Empire of Japan which aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific and was already at war with the Republic of China and the German empire, which had conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan.
In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European territories in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific.
World War II also altered the political alignment and social structure of the world.
The United Nations (UN) was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts.
The victorious great powers” the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, and France” became the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years.
Being the deadliest war in history, in terms of the cumulative number of deaths since its start, World War II resulted in 60 – 85 million deaths.
On August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure.
Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people.
Black soldiers served in the United States Army in both wars. More than 200,000 Blacks fought with American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in France and another 175,000 were stationed in Europe during World War II.
But none of them fought alongside white American troops.
Instead, the fully segregated Black units fought with the French Army and took orders from French commanders.
This was partly a bargain struck by General Pershing to appease the French, who needed fresh troops in their lines ASAP.
Mostly, however, it was a sign of how pervasively racist the United States and the AEF were.
White troops refused to fight alongside Black troops, even though they were all fighting on the same side with 171 Black soldiers being awarded the French Legion of Honor for their heroism in battle, and the 369th Infantry, an allblack unit, was one of the most decorated American units of the war.
At war’s end, over 600 African-Americans had been commissioned as officers, a rank denied to them before the war.
Though still segregated and suffering terrible prejudice, Black soldiers made important strides for race relations during the war.
Vietnam War – The Vietnam War was a highly controversial war for America because it represented a public challenge of political leaders committing to war.
The U.S. government viewed its involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam.
This was part of a wider containment policy, with the stated aim of stopping the spread of communism.
The North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam under communist rule.
They viewed the conflict as a colonial war, fought initially against forces from France and then America, and later against South Vietnam.
Direct U.S. military involvement ended in August 1973.
The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975 marked the end of the war, and North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year.
The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities with an estimated 3.1 million Vietnamese service members and civilians killed and nearly 60,000 U.S. service members killed in this war.
The Vietnam War was unlike any other because it was heavily influenced by public opinion ; many Americans were unhappy with every aspect of this war including the large casualties of innocent Vietnamese.
During this war, there were alarming instances of outright racism and discrimination of Black soldiers with the highest proportion of blacks ever to serve in an American war. During the height of U.S. involvement, Blacks representing nearly 11 percent of the nation’s population made up of nearly 13percent of the soldiers in Vietnam” this number becomes more exaggerated when you consider that the true percentage that we should be focusing on is more like four percent which only focuses on Black men between the ages of 17 and 35. And in spite of this alarmin g disparity, life for most Black soldiers was very oppressive to say the least.
Some have described Blacks treatment as facing almost as bitter a hostility from their fellow white Americans than from the enemy.
In 1962 President John F. Kennedy reactivated the President’s Committee on Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces.
The committee found uneven promotion, token integration, restricted opportunities in the National Guard and Reserves, and discrimination on military bases and their surrounding communities as causes for low Black enlistment.
Before the government could react to the committee’s report, the explosion of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia changed the problem.
An expanded military, a discriminatory draft, and other government programs brought not only increased African American participation but accusations of new forms of discrimination.
From the outset, the misuse of Black troops brought charges of racism.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., described the Vietnam conflict as racist’”a white man’s war, a black man’s fight.” King maintained that Black youths represented a disproportionate share of early draftees and that African Americans faced a much greater chance of seeing combat.
These wars have never been about the soldier because political leaders make these decisions supposedly in the best interest of America and the soldiers were there to do a job” this is why we must honor them.
While they have a number of reasons for participating, the fact that they loved their country shouldn’t go unnoticed. The sad reality is that for the thousands of participants, this is usually not a question or concern” when they are called to serve they must do so (draft or volunteer) and our Black men served honorably as if they were equal in the eyes of America when they weren’t.
Each war represented a different set of discrimination for Black solders not only during the wars, but most importantly when they returned home they were still treated like second class citizens despite their service to the country.
In spite of the obvious prejudices and outright discrimination, Black soldiers gave their lives disproportionately, yet them and their offspring received the least.
During these wars, the horror stories of racism against Black soldiers ran the gambit from the actual “murders” of Black soldiers by white soldiers to whites not wanting to fight next to Blacks.
Many Black soldiers were placed in extremely vulnerable positions and as a result they became more expendable than the white solders.
Generally speaking, Black treatment by white officers and other white soldiers was similar to the treatment that Blacks received on a regular basis from whites in America (not much had changed).
Blacks were rarely ever promoted to become officers and they were primarily relegated to the hardest and least sought after jobs and responsibilities, and even today the accolades are being posthumously given because many accomplishments of valor and courage were not allowed to be honored during the war.
Blacks commonly received jobs that were reminiscent of slavery, such as cooking and manual labor and during the Civil War Blacks were paid $10 a month with a $3 charge for clothes.
Whites, on the other hand, were paid $13 a month and received clothes for free.
In June 1864, Congress passed laws guaranteeing equal pay to US colored troops. It took legislation for Blacks to receive equal rations and basic medical care during war.
The harsh reality that former slaves had to face was that even though they had attained freedom, they had not gained social equality.
Free Blacks had very few rights to property, and found it nearly impossible to get jobs.
Black soldiers returning home suffered even more humiliation and extreme prejudices.
Angered at the humane treatment with which the French had treated Blacks during World War I, white mobs lynched nearly 100 Black veterans while many of them still in uniform.
Even as the physical sting of racism has lessened, it is very clear that Black soldiers were not afforded the same benefits as White solders.
Whites who sacrificed their lives for their country were justified because their families enjoyed the American dream.
But for so many Blacks soldiers that sacrificed their lives for their country their families suffered with the American nightmare.
In addition to outright racism that was unleashed against Black people for nearly 450 years by white America, when it came to defending the American democracy in America and abroad, Blacks’ sacrifices and loss of life meets and/ or exceeds any other group.
In addition to outright racism which has nearly permanently damaged Blacks, Blacks now are at the mercy of structural poverty and structural racism which makes the sacrifice of Black soldiers even more remarkable.
Blacks rank dead last in every positive demographic and lead by as many as 50 basis points on every negative demographic.
The contributions of fallen heroes wasn’t enough to change the climate and culture of American racism.
The great Stevie Wonder wrote and song about Black soldiers who suffered the hardest injustices when serving in Vietnam “They had me standing on the front line but now I stand at the back of the line when it comes to getting ahead.”
I say that Black men who died in these wars were the GREATEST OF SOLDIERS AND THE GREATEST HEROES, and this is what our community should be celebrating on Memorial Day and every day.