“Building Bridges” by Douglas Bristol Jr.

World War II is a never-ending source of history. Decades after the conflict’s conclusion, research and examination continue as we seek to understand how we got to where we are today.

In Building Bridges, Douglas Bristol examines how the military treated Black Americans before, during, and after the national emergency that WWII represented. 

Initially, Black Americans weren’t accepted into the service like their white counterparts. When the first peacetime draft was instituted in 1940, many Blacks were passed over by local draft boards, especially in the South. Spurred on by the federal government, more Blacks entered the military, but largely in menial roles rather than serving as combat troops, said Bristol. “Eighty percent of African Americans were used in a service capacity over the course of the war,” he said.

But in the spring of 1943, the American military faced manpower shortages that threatened to delay the D-Day invasion, said Bristol. “What followed was a conservative revolution in the Army that changed the way they trained Black GIs,” he said.

Since two-thirds of the Black GIs, many coming from a sharecropper background, had only a third-grade education, the Army devised new ways to evaluate recruits, developing non-verbal IQ tests and forming special training units, said Bristol.

The training allowed Black GIs who had been sharecroppers before the war to gain skills, allowing them to work in complex organizations, he said.

Riley King, later to become known as musician B.B. King, was a tractor driver in the service who was permitted to return to work in the field, said Bristol, pointing it out as an example of how labor needs of Southern planters were taken into account by the military. 

King was also witness to a scene that exemplified the added burden African American soldiers faced in WWII, said the author. 

“He was on a bus with other GIs when they passed people on the road. One of the Black GIs innocently called out to some of the women. When the bus came to a lunch stop, an enraged white man got on the bus with a rifle, demanding to know who had the temerity to address a white woman. No one said a word despite being threatened at point-blank range. Eventually, the man left. The incident showed the need for solidarity among Black soldiers when facing hardship,” he said.

African American newspapers like the Pittsburgh Courier and Chicago Defender also played a part in helping Black citizens overcome problems in the military. “The constant complaint of African Americans was that the mainstream press said nothing at all about the racial incidents that occurred in camps across the country. The Black press allowed people to read about the problems," said Bristol.

As a fellow in the Dale Center for the Study of War and Society at the University of Southern Mississippi, Bristol previously co-edited Integrating the U.S. Military: Race, Gender, and Sexuality Since World War II.