Double V Campaign Analysis

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Pages: 7

What if somebody said that WWII fabricated another war? Someone else would likely respond saying that is false as WWIII doesn’t exist, but what about another “Civil War” that actually occurred in America due to WWII? As Hitler and his fascist party took over Europe, Americans had declared war on them. At the time, many African Americans were trying to advocate for their rights and had very little success, but this would change as America began to prepare for war. White Americans therefore had no choice but to enlist Black Americans and give them more jobs in order to win the war. African Americans were soon given more opportunities than they had ever had before. As time went on, African Americans were able to advance their rights and even start …show more content…
declared war on the Axis Powers because of their fascist and racist ideology, the hypocrisy was not missed by the African Americans and ended up pushing them to fight for their rights. The idea was that it was a good opportunity to show how Americans knew racism was wrong as they declared war, but now need to “declare war” on the racism within their own nation. This led to the creation of the Double V Campaign which stood for Double Victory, advocating for victory abroad regarding fascism and victory at home regarding Black discrimination. The purpose of this campaign was to highlight the hypocrisy of the Americans and use that as a justification for the betterment of their rights, a sensible and strong claim. The Double V Campaign brought a lot of attention not only due to the undeniable truth of the campaign, but also the sheer number of African Americans who participated in it because of the greater justification to fight due to the war. “As never before, local black communities throughout the nation participated enthusiastically in wartime programs while intensifying their demands for social progress” (“The Double V Victory''). The campaign ended up very successful, not only changing policies through President Roosevelt and Truman, but also catching the attention of the entire American public. It was war and its hypocrisy that inspired African Americans to fight even harder, ultimately advancing their rights. The idea of the hypocrisy pushing African …show more content…
A scenario of this occurred with a white business owner named Henry Kaiser. Due to the need of more workers as many people left to fight in the war, he began to employ large numbers of African Americans and had them working alongside his white employees. Despite heavy criticism and attempts to tarnish his business, Henry allowed “Black Americans to break down racial barriers in the workforce” ("Path to employment: Black workers in Kaiser shipyards''). As time went on, criticism went down and it became more normal for Black and White workers to be together, which didn’t only happen in Kaiser’s business but in many businesses in America as it was the only reasonable action given that position. It was WWII itself that forced integration while normalizing it, because white Americans knew if they wanted to succeed they needed more numbers of men. Black Americans took advantage of the war and gladly participated in the war-related fields of WWII. Another example of the war allowing racial integration becoming normalized was the highly influential executive order made by President Franklin Roosevelt. This executive order prohibited discrimination in federal employment in all war-related work and also created the Fair Employment Practices