Because Their Skins Are Brown...
Solon, S. L.
"Because Their Skins Are Brown..." JIM CROWISM IN THE AMERICAN ARMED FORCES IN BRITAIN By S. L. Solon Special to Tu New Lhaoes IONDON—By Mail — Recently Secretary of War Stimson announced that...
...25 words deleted by censor.] It is ironical that a combination of circumstances over which they have no cotitrol has made many Negroes more conscious of discrimination overseas than they have been in the United States...
...Men under a common command...
...Britain has a heritage of tolerance and liberalism which has contributed vastly to freedom over the earth...
...It is the vindirstion of our faith in ourselves four yeara ago, when even oar friends believed we were losl...
...Tree trunks were erected on open spaces to complicate the landing of German machines and gliders...
...This is not written in a spirit of vainglory, but in one of gratitude thst this small island, Britain, was able to maintain herself, scarred but free, as a i ii in pi off place for the great invasion...
...ArE the American Negro troops as happy today as they were then as allies and guests of the British people...
...Then will come the turn of the Japanese...
...The blunt and simple answer is: No...
...In General Eisenhower's words: "Recreation and entertainment are necessary for soldiers in the European Theatre of Operations...
...The declared policy of the American Army in relation to the Negro soldier is absolutely clear: He is to receive the same treatment, wages, rations as the white troops...
...For most Britons it is the first time that they have seen Negroes {¦ relstively large groups...
...Early this morning, after most of the aircraft had come home again, I watched the searchlights sweeping across the sky to direct some damaged machine back towards its airfield...
...IN hots in the squire's park there are a few hundred Americans...
...And yet, despite that common purpose and common command, the American and British attitudes to this Invasion are extraordinarily different...
...Even white troops who shared no feeling of prejudice in the United States have, I am sorry to say...
...We met then, as we do now, in the village pub, for we had to discuss how we could deal with the expected invader...
...TllEKEFOKK the humble cilivians determined, when the invasion came, to put up a resistance that would be worthy of the spirit in which the Army came back from Dunkirk, defeated but not dismayed, or in which the Royal Air Force defended the airfields of Britain, outnumbered but not overwhelmed...
...Pathetic ditches that were intended to be tank traps were dug across our fields...
...On a recent day when I visited a delightful Red Cross Club established for Negro troops 1 wondered if that was the reason why there were so few soldiers there...
...The neatly arranged !*ws of tanks and trucks and mobile guns and jeeps last we have seen for weeks on the country roads of England are the result...
...Because the problem is of vital importance, not only to military morale, but al«o to Anglo-American understanding I think the farts should be reported—not for the purpose ef casting blame, but in order to serve as a basis for a fruitful discussion ef the issue...
...Ridiculous barriers of barbed wire or broken-down cars or old farm waggons were placed across the roads to hold„up the invader—ridiculous, but all that we could manage at the time, for our military equipment was on the wrong side of the English Channel...
...Our way of life would disappear from this hemisphere for yeais, and possibly for generations...
...I have seen the facilities available for their recreation and heard community leaders aWuss the changes, and the reasons for these changes, that have taken place in the attitudes of teste Britons toward the American Negro troops...
...That is why it was with pleasant surprise that American observers who were here in 1942 when the first Negro contingents arrived from America saw amicable and smooth relations develop between these Negro troops and their British hosts...
...In four years we have so recovered thst we ran invade from shores where Hitler's invsders were expected...
...Even less so is it today when we are fighting a war to preserve and extend democratic values in the world...
...I've been led to believe, however, that our relations with American white troops will be better if we conform to whet 1 understand to be American practices of discrimination...
...PREJUDICE is a hardy plant and its iieers are easily scattered...
...When Brigadier-General Benjamin 0. Davis, highest ranking Negro officer in the American Army, arrived on a tour of inspection la October, 1942, he told me: "All the troops 1 have seen are profuse in their praise of the way they have been received here...
...Your men have been waiting for the word to go in and help finish the1 job against l«e Germans...
...Last night, for several hours, the whole sky was resonant with the throbbing of the engines of thousands ef giant aircraft, on their way to the coast and to enemy-occupied Eurqpe...
...No one can enjoy himself where he feels he is not wanted...
...INflucH of this applies, too, to us Englishmen...
...That mysterious territory from which messengers come in secret with their tales of the 'peoples snxiously awaitssg the signal to revolt thst will come to them with tfce landing of the British and United States forces...
...And If we ran be proud that we did not fail then, we ran also be grateful that American men and material* have helped so greatly towards msking tbat rhsnge possible...
...But it doesn't occur to ns to wonder any mors, for they are both on the same job...
...Thouaad* of American Negro cititenx, sent to fight for democracy—and if need be die—have thus been standard with no opportunity to reply, or find, as they would in America, public and voluble defenders to reply for them...
...I nave recently talked to Negro troops quartered about Britain...
...Sometimes the one, sometimes the other...
...A town councillor told me: "Personally I have no feeling of race prejudice...
...cannot remember any suggestion by anyone that we should surrender...
...JIM CROWISM IN THE AMERICAN ARMED FORCES IN BRITAIN By S. L. Solon Special to Tu New Lhaoes IONDON—By Mail — Recently Secretary of War Stimson announced that the number of Negroes > In the United State* Army would soon exceed 706,000 troops—more than ten per cent ef the total jsrce...
...accepted reactionary attitudes toward the Negro, held by some AaieriranH in the Army...
...Far from their homes, families, communities, they have had few of the consolations, little of the companionship and still less of welcome which have served the white troops so well and maintained morale during dull, arduous days...
...To your men, finding temporary homes in our villages and woods and fields, the invasion is the culmination of the great American military effort...
...INVASION—Then and Now By Vernon Bartlett, M.P...
...The answer la also in the steady progress made in America against discriminatory practicea...
...Our thoughts turned, as they do today, to that mysterious territory across the English Channel, for we could hear the faint dull thud of the guns that were shelling our men on the beach at Dunkirk...
...In the woods overlooking the town there are the tents of the Royal Air Force...
...It would be a mistake for Britons to assume that now, in deference to reactionary attitudes, it is time to sell that heritage short...
...Churchill's memorable speeches of defiance in the House of Commons expressed exactly what they were saying in my village pub...
...v . A common purpose...
...The American Red Cross has opened Negro-staffed clubs around Britain...
...now on staff of the I>ondon 1 News-Chronicle...
...Many thousands of American Negro troops are in Britain...
...as § Vernon Bartlett is a wellknown British writer H and commentator on international affairs...
...He also said that half of these American Negro ssldjers were already overseas, a large part of them equipped for combat or combat-support duty...
...Beyond the line of the South Downs, a mile or two away, is the English Channel, and beyond the English Channel is that, mysterious territory known as Occupied Europe...
...These men were greeted with cheers and cigarettes and cups of tea, but many of us wondered secretly how long we could defend this island of ours against well-trained and well-equipped German divisions...
...Nn your machinery of production will again revert *e peacetime production...
...Subtly and gradually, through no fault of their own— the records show they are remarkably well-behaved troops—they have felt the mood of a community turn gradually cooler until an icy wall has barred them entirely from community life...
...I know one community where the Mayor publicly and hospitably welcomed the incoming American white troops while the Negro troops were entirely ignored...
...The men who meet in our village pub, to be served by a white-haired, bine-eyed giant of an ex-policeman, know that they are . crowded into this quiet English countryside for a common and awe-inspiring purpose...
...But a recreation renter located in a community can only be as good as the goodwill and the cooperation of the community allows...
...He is to have equal opportunities for recreation...
...For you Ameri•ans It marks the culmination of a great military and industrial effort...
...And one thing above all others that General Eisenhower has done is to mix up British and American senior officers so that none of them thinks or acts as a Briton or as an American, but as a member of a United Nations staff...
...former §f special correspondent of 77ir Times in Germany, § Poland and Italy...
...All those miracles of aircraft building and ship building, of food production and of army training, that have made a German and Japanese ¦victory impossible...
...To our men, who will fight side by side with them, it is something more...
...But there is something else besides...
...Four years ago this village was passing through a similar period of tension and anxiety...
...We realized that if our country were over-run, the job of organizing expeditionary forces in the Dominions, to continue the war, would be damnably difficult...
...Aircraft throbbed in the hot spring sky then as now—but the bombers were all German machines, and our fighting planes were so patched together that it was a miracle that our tired pilots could still maneuver them...
...There were a few sporting guns available...
...Commanders should try to make it possible to attend plays, movies, and lectures, as well as to accept privately offered hospitality...
...Independent Member of l'arliag nient for Bridgwater...
...They represent a larger Negro population (pan the British Isles have ever known...
...Doubtless much of the defiance was due to ignorance of the danger and to sluggish imaginations, but it was inspiring and exhilarating, all the same...
...And he added: "I sincerely hope that the British people will not change their ideas of freedom...
...The answer to that was made by an American officer: "Discrimination is not American...
...Officers and men should have equal opportunity for recreation...
...Inevitably, in their contact with the British population some Americans have sought to transfer these attitudes to their overseas hosts...
...Because of their large numbers in America and the existence of large socially self-contained Negro communities many American Negroes have been able to lead their lives almost unaware that a race problem existed...
...Four years ago we were almost alone and now we have strong allies on every side...
...For most of the American Negroes it is the first time that they have been away from their homes and communities...
...No soldier's morale has suffered from being given a clearer understanding of the liberal purposes for which we are fighting this war...
...The Red Cross clubs, supported by funds provided by the American people and the facilities provided by the British under lend-lease, are bright, well situated and well-directe'd recreation centers...
...Your fantastic machinery of production was diverted from peacetime purposes to enable our allied armies to smash Germany and Japan...
...I hope they will continue to be as broad and liberal as they have always been and remain masters in their own house...
...The morale of many thousands of soldiers can be affected by the conviction that the slogans under which they march to battle are meaningless for them because their skins are brown...
...The men who were brought home from Dunkirk in that odd array of little boats carried with them what they coiild, but all our mechanized transport and all our guns were lost...
...American or British...
Vol. 27 • May 1944 • No. 22
